Private Something in the Roots

[Marrok Vorr]

Objective: The Forest Is Sick
Location: Noe'ha'on — Piryn Shar Sector, Expansion Region
Outfit: Gray Robes
Tags: Nitya Xeraic

The final approach to Noe'ha'on had been considerably less peaceful than Marrok would have preferred for his first journey away from Oralis Prime with Nitya. Not because anyone had fired upon them. That would almost have been simpler. Instead, the Expansion Region world rested inconveniently inside territory claimed by the Sith, turning what should have been a straightforward response to a request for aid into an exercise in avoiding attention. Marrok had taken the lead almost without discussion once they crossed into hostile space. Their route had avoided the most obvious hyperlanes, their transponder had remained carefully uninteresting, and the final approach had kept them low and away from anywhere likely to possess sophisticated orbital monitoring.

For once, Marrok didn't resent those instincts. That realization had occupied his thoughts during much of the descent. Nitya had never asked him to stop being a warrior. She had asked him to learn when that warrior was necessary. Here? Here he was useful.

"There's something reassuring about discovering that you haven't convinced me to discard all of my old habits." The comment came dryly as Marrok glanced toward Nitya, one hand making the final adjustments to their approach. "I was beginning to worry your gardening lessons were dangerously effective."

Below them stretched an enormous expanse of jungle broken by wetlands and sluggish waterways. From this altitude, nothing looked particularly wrong. Green stretched toward the horizon in countless shades, dense enough that finding their intended landing area had required coordinates supplied with the original request. That bothered him. Plant diseases he understood only in the broadest sense. Entire ecosystems behaving strangely was another matter entirely.

Their message had contained descriptions rather than answers. Plants failing where they had previously flourished. Changes appearing in multiple areas. Enough uncertainty that someone had decided outside assistance was warranted. Marrok had spent enough of his life around conflict to distrust unexplained patterns.

"We should consider the possibility that this isn't natural." He looked toward Nitya. "I'm trying very hard not to turn that statement into seventeen contingency plans." A faint smile appeared. "Appreciate the restraint." The humor faded as he looked back toward the jungle.

"A pathogen would be the obvious explanation. Fungus. Parasite. Environmental change." He paused. "Something introduced from offworld." That possibility carried more weight. Noe'ha'on's position inside Sith territory made coincidence considerably less comforting. "Or someone has deliberately interfered with the ecosystem."

His expression tightened slightly. "Poisoning. Biological experimentation. Something intended to make the population dependent upon outside assistance." Those were possibilities his old life understood much better. Perhaps too well.

Marrok caught himself beginning to follow each possibility toward its logical tactical response and stopped. He released a slow breath. "No." The word was directed mostly at himself.

"We don't know enough yet." A small glance toward Nitya followed. "I'm learning."

The ship descended beneath the canopy through a natural break in the vegetation, repulsors stirring leaves and sending small creatures fleeing from the clearing. Marrok guided them carefully downward until the landing gear settled against damp earth. Only then did some of the tension leave his shoulders.

"We listen first." It sounded almost like a reminder. "Find out what changed, when it changed, and whether the Noehons noticed anything unusual before the plants became sick." Marrok powered down the remaining systems. "Then you tell me everything I've misunderstood about plants."

His eyes shifted toward her. "And I'll tell you whether someone appears to be trying to kill us." A beat. "Balance." The corner of his mouth twitched upward. Perhaps there was something to the concept after all.

The air outside was immediately different from Oralis Prime. Heavy. Wet. Alive. Marrok stepped down from the vessel and stopped for several seconds simply absorbing it. Moisture seemed to cling instantly to his clothes. The scents were almost overwhelming—wet vegetation, stagnant water, decaying organic matter and countless unfamiliar things beneath them.

His awareness expanded through the Force almost instinctively. This time he did not immediately search for threats. He tried to feel the place. Life pressed against his senses from every direction. So much life that identifying what was wrong within it seemed almost impossible.

"I admit..." His gaze moved toward Nitya. "...I was imagining something slightly more obvious." A diseased field perhaps. Withered plants. Something neatly contained.

The jungle apparently had no interest in cooperating with his expectations. Naturally. Marrok almost smiled at the thought. Then movement drew his attention. His posture changed immediately. Not dramatically. Just enough. His shoulders straightened and his awareness narrowed toward the vegetation beyond the clearing.

Figures were emerging from between the trees. Noehons. Marrok resisted the instinct to place himself completely between them and Nitya. Instead he shifted only slightly forward, enough to acknowledge that, here at least, navigating uncertain first contact was something he was comfortable handling.

His hands remained plainly visible. Away from his weapons. "We were asked to come." His voice carried clearly across the clearing without becoming demanding. "To investigate what is happening to your plants."

Marrok glanced briefly toward Nitya beside him before returning his attention to their hosts. "This is Nitya Xeraic." There was a subtle warmth accompanying the introduction.

"She understands living things considerably better than I do." A pause. "I'm Marrok Vorr." His gaze moved between the approaching Noehons. "We came to listen first."

The words felt strangely significant. Perhaps because a short time ago they would never have been the first promise he offered. Marrok allowed his awareness to remain open as the Noehons approached. Not searching for enemies. Searching for understanding. And somewhere beside that awareness rested another certainty. If understanding proved insufficient and something more sinister truly had taken root on Noe'ha'on…Then Nitya had brought a warrior with her after all.

 

[Nitya Xeraic]

Nitya had spent enough of the approach watching Marrok to recognize the difference between the vigilance she had first encountered on Oralis Prime and what she saw in him now. The habits were the same in many respects. He checked their route, considered where attention might come from, and anticipated dangers that had not yet appeared. Yet there was none of the restless insistence that every possibility had to be followed until it produced another possibility. He was using what experience had given him rather than allowing it to consume him, and she found herself quietly pleased by the distinction. More than pleased, perhaps. Their first journey together had not been intended as a test of anything between them, but she had discovered during the flight that she enjoyed sharing space with him just as much away from the monastery as she had among its gardens.

His comment about her gardening lessons brought an easy smile to her face. "I never intended to discard all of your old habits," she replied, glancing from the jungle below to him. "Some of them are proving remarkably useful. I simply wanted you to stop applying them to fruit trees." There was warmth beneath the teasing that had become increasingly natural between them. When he began listing possible causes for the problem below, however, she listened without interrupting. Each possibility was reasonable, including the more troubling ones. Noe'ha'on's location made deliberate interference impossible to dismiss, but she noticed when his thoughts began accelerating and watched him deliberately bring himself back from them.

The small admission that followed drew something gentler into her expression. "You are," Nitya agreed, and there was unmistakable approval in the two words. "And I appreciate the restraint. Seventeen contingency plans would have made this a considerably longer flight." Her gaze returned to the jungle beneath them. "But I agree that we should not assume this is natural merely because plants are involved. Disease spreads according to patterns. So does environmental stress. If something has been introduced deliberately, there may be a pattern to that as well." She paused, considering the endless green. "We find the places where the changes began and compare them to somewhere still healthy. The difference may tell us more than the damage itself."

She felt the landing through the deck and waited until the ship had settled before rising, gathering what she intended to carry with her. The pale mint-green lightsaber at her side felt slightly more noticeable here than it ever did on Oralis Prime, if only because she was acutely conscious of whose territory surrounded them. She had no intention of advertising what they were, though neither did she intend to pretend helplessness if their precautions failed. At Marrok's promise to tell her whether anyone was trying to kill them, she looked at him for a moment before a quiet laugh escaped her. "That seems equitable. Plants are mine. Assassins are yours." Her smile lingered as she headed for the hatch. "If we encounter an assassin disguised as a plant, however, I expect cooperation."

The humid air enveloped her almost immediately when she stepped outside, and Nitya stopped several paces from the ship. Unlike Marrok, she did not initially try to isolate anything within the living abundance surrounding them. She simply opened herself to it. Oralis Prime had taught her how much could be learned by listening before deciding what she expected to hear, and Noe'ha'on was almost overwhelming in comparison. Life existed everywhere, layered upon itself in roots and leaves, insects and distant animals, water and decay feeding whatever would grow next. Her naturally glowing yellow eyes moved slowly across the clearing while her awareness stretched farther into the jungle. There was beauty here, but it was unfamiliar enough that she resisted assigning meaning to every difference she sensed.

"I was expecting something more obvious too," she admitted quietly, looking toward Marrok. "That may actually concern me more." If the damage had been severe enough for outsiders to be summoned yet could disappear so completely beneath the surrounding abundance, then either they had landed some distance from the affected areas or the problem was subtler than simple blight. She was still considering that when Marrok's posture changed. Nitya noticed immediately, not because the movement alarmed her, but because she had begun learning him. Her gaze followed his toward the vegetation and found the figures emerging from it.

She remained beside him when he shifted slightly forward. There was something unexpectedly reassuring in the movement precisely because he did not attempt to place himself wholly between her and the Noehons. He had made room for his protective instinct without reducing her to someone who required protection, and the distinction mattered to her. Nitya allowed him to speak first, watching their hosts rather than reaching for either her lightsaber or the Force in any overt fashion. When he introduced her, the subtle warmth in his voice did not escape her. It touched her more readily than she would have expected, bringing the faintest curve to her lips before she turned her attention fully toward the Noehons.

"Thank you for allowing us to come," she added after Marrok finished. Her voice was calm and carried no assumption that their help was automatically wanted simply because someone had requested it. "We were told that plants have begun failing in places where they previously grew well, but I would rather hear what you have observed than begin with someone else's description. You know this land. You know what is ordinary here in ways that we cannot." She glanced briefly toward the dense jungle surrounding them. "If you can show us where you first noticed the changes and somewhere nearby that remains healthy, I would like to see both."

Her attention remained on their hosts, but she was quietly aware of Marrok beside her in a way she had not expected when they first discussed leaving Oralis Prime together. Back at the monastery, she had wondered whether she needed to venture into the galaxy more often. Now, standing beneath an unfamiliar sky on a world within Sith territory, she found that the answer was becoming clearer. She had missed this more than she realized. The discovery itself pleased her, but so did the person with whom she was making it. She glanced toward Marrok for only a moment, warmth passing easily through her expression before she returned her gaze to the Noehons. Whatever had taken root here, natural or otherwise, they would discover it together.

Marrok Vorr

 

[Marrok Vorr]

Objective: The Forest Is Sick
Location: Noe'ha'on — Piryn Shar Sector, Expansion Region
Outfit: Gray Robes
Tags: Nitya Xeraic

Marrok chuckled at the distinction Nitya made between the habits worth keeping and those best left away from fruit trees. It was a teasing comment, but there was something in it that he appreciated more deeply than the humor alone. She had never truly asked him to abandon who he had been.

That realization had become clearer with every conversation they shared. Nitya had not looked at the warrior and decided he needed replacing. She had simply challenged him to recognize that the skills his life had taught him did not need to govern every situation he encountered. Adaptation rather than rejection. Growth rather than replacement. Apparently their little tree had managed to teach him that lesson too.

"I'll try to remember that distinction." His smile turned slightly sheepish. "Though if we return and discover our tree has developed hostile intentions, I reserve the right to reconsider."

He listened carefully as she expanded upon his possibilities, particularly the suggestion that they compare the first affected areas against healthy ones. That made sense even to someone whose botanical knowledge had increased dramatically over the last few days but still largely consisted of dig hole, loosen roots, add tree.

More importantly, it gave them somewhere to begin without deciding beforehand what they expected to find. "Find the differences before deciding which ones matter." He nodded. "I can work with that." And if those differences suggested something deliberate, then perhaps the skills Nitya had encouraged him not to discard would become useful again.

Her division of responsibilities aboard the ship earned another grin. "Plants are yours. Assassins are mine." Marrok nodded solemnly as though accepting the terms of an important treaty. "Agreed."

Then came the qualification. An assassin disguised as a plant. He looked at her. For perhaps two seconds, his expression remained perfectly serious. Then the smile broke through. "Cooperation." He repeated the word with considerably more warmth than the joke warranted. "I think you'll find I'm strongly in favor of cooperating with you regardless of the obstacle." His gaze lingered on hers for a heartbeat before he returned his attention to the landing procedure. "If the obstacle happens to be murderous vegetation, I'll consider that an opportunity to demonstrate my commitment."

Outside, Marrok found himself sharing Nitya's concern. The jungle looked healthy. Almost aggressively so. Life crowded into every available space, competing for light above and soil below. Nothing about the clearing immediately suggested the kind of crisis serious enough to risk sending a request for offworld assistance through Sith-controlled territory.

"Exactly." His eyes continued searching the surrounding vegetation. "If half the jungle were dead, we'd at least know where to begin." He paused. "I never thought I'd find myself wishing a plant disease were more obvious." A glance toward Nitya accompanied the admission. "You've already had a troubling influence on me."

When the Noehons appeared, old instincts came easily. But differently. Marrok registered their numbers. Their positions. The paths by which they had approached. Which carried tools and which might conceivably be weapons. He noticed those things because experience had taught him to. Then he let the observations go. There was no need to turn them into predictions. Not yet. Nitya remained beside him rather than behind him, exactly where he expected her to be. That felt right.

As she spoke to their hosts, Marrok remained quiet. He was particularly pleased when she acknowledged that the Noehons understood their own environment better than either visitor could. It would have been easy for outsiders—Jedi especially—to arrive assuming that because they possessed broader knowledge, they possessed better knowledge. Marrok had been guilty of similar assumptions before.

His gaze briefly met Nitya's when she looked toward him. The warmth there prompted an answering smile before his attention returned to their hosts. One of the Noehons clicked its mandibles before answering in heavily accented Basic. "It began with the sava vine."

Marrok's expression became attentive. The Noehon gestured toward the jungle. "Everywhere here. Grows on old trees. On stone. In water-edge. We cut it, weave it. Young shoots eaten."

Another of the insectoids stepped forward, speaking rapidly in their native tongue before the first translated. "Leaves began curling inward. Not dying. First... sleeping."

That word caught Marrok's attention. "Sleeping?"

The Noehon bobbed its head. "No flower. No new shoots. Cut vine does not grow back." That sounded concerning enough, but apparently it was only the beginning. "Then trees near sleeping vine changed."

Marrok glanced toward Nitya. "Changed how?"

"Bark soft. Sap dark. Fruit comes early." The Noehon's mandibles shifted uneasily. "Fruit looks ripe. Is not. Bitter. Sometimes makes sick." Marrok's expression tightened. The speaker continued. "Then small plants beneath trees disappear. Some insects too."

That made Marrok's gaze move instinctively toward the apparently healthy jungle surrounding them. Not one plant. Several. Perhaps an entire relationship between them. "How quickly?"

The Noehons exchanged words among themselves. "First vine sickness, three moons ago. One weld." The speaker pointed roughly eastward. "Then another. Then another."

Marrok's eyes narrowed slightly. "Moving in one direction?"

The Noehon hesitated. "No." That answer interested him considerably more. Several clawed fingers pointed toward different directions through the jungle. "Places far apart."

Marrok looked toward Nitya. Separate outbreaks. That did not prove interference. It didn't prove anything yet. He reminded himself of that before the old machinery of contingency and suspicion could begin turning. Still..."Did anything else happen before the first changes?"

The Noehons became noticeably less comfortable. Their spokesperson looked toward the others before finally answering. "Strangers came."

Marrok became very still. "What strangers?"

"Not Noehon." The answer was accompanied by an agitated series of clicks from another member of the group. "Ships. Machines. They said they searched stone beneath ground. Old things."

Marrok's gaze moved slowly toward Nitya. There it was. Not an answer. A possibility. And he was rather proud of himself for recognizing the difference. "Did they visit every place where the sickness later appeared?"

Another exchange passed among their hosts. The eventual answer was frustratingly uncertain. "Some."

Marrok nodded rather than pressing further. That was enough for now. He looked toward Nitya. "I believe this is the part where I resist constructing seventeen theories about mysterious strangers." A faint smile appeared. "And we go look at the plants."

His attention returned to the Noehons. "Show us where it began." Then, after a moment, he added: "And if possible, take us by a place where the sava vine is still healthy."

His eyes flicked toward Nitya. "Healthy and sick." A hint of satisfaction entered his expression. "I was listening."

 

[Nitya Xeraic]

Nitya caught the satisfaction in Marrok's final words and answered it with a smile that carried considerably more warmth than simple approval. "You were," she agreed. "I'm beginning to think there may be hope for you after all." The teasing came easily now, but her attention soon returned to the Noehons and what they had described. She appreciated that Marrok had caught himself before turning the strangers into an answer simply because their arrival made them suspicious. Three moons of deterioration, several separate locations, and visitors searching beneath the ground created a pattern worth investigating, but a pattern was not yet proof of its cause.

She looked toward the Noehon who had spoken of the sava vine. "Before the leaves began curling, did anything else about the vine change? Its color, smell, the texture of its leaves or stems? Did animals or insects stop feeding on it before you noticed that it had stopped growing?" The questions were offered slowly enough to allow their hosts time to translate among themselves when needed. One of the Noehons answered with a rapid series of clicks, joined almost immediately by another before their spokesperson turned back toward her. "Small insects leave first. On healthy vine, many. On sleeping vine, fewer. Then none." It rubbed two clawed fingers together as though searching for the right description. "Leaves feel... thick. Not dry. Heavy." Nitya's expression became thoughtful as she asked about the roots, earning another brief exchange before the answer came. "Roots still alive. Cut root, wet inside. Darker near sick places."

That interested her. The vines were not simply dying from the exposed growth inward. Something was affecting them while leaving enough living tissue for them to persist in a diminished state. She resisted deciding what that meant and moved instead to the trees. "You said the trees changed after the vines. Are they always trees that the affected sava vine was growing upon, or have trees changed where there was no sick vine touching them?" This answer took longer. Several of the Noehons disagreed, their clicking conversation becoming animated enough that Nitya waited without interrupting until their spokesperson finally gestured toward the jungle. "First trees have vine. Later, some trees nearby without vine." When Nitya asked how near, the answer was simple. "Roots near roots."

Nitya glanced toward Marrok. That was useful. Whatever was happening might be moving through soil, groundwater, connected root systems, insects, or something else beneath the surface. The underground searches conducted by the strangers became more interesting in that context, but she deliberately left the thought unspoken for the moment. "What about the water? Do the affected places share the same streams or wetlands? Has anything changed in the water itself? Smell, color, dead fish, fewer insects?" Again came the conversation between their hosts. This time the answer was less certain. "Some near water. Some not. Water looks same." One of the Noehons interrupted sharply, pointing eastward, and the spokesperson corrected itself. "One place, little water tasted metal. Not now."

Marrok would almost certainly have noticed the same significance she did, but Nitya did not immediately seize upon it. One metallic-tasting pool could mean contamination, disturbed minerals, machinery beneath the ground, or nothing connected to their problem at all. When she asked whether that had occurred before or after the sava vine changed, however, the answer gave her pause. "After strangers. Before sleeping." Her naturally glowing eyes narrowed thoughtfully before she continued. "Do you remember where their ships landed, and where their machines were used?" The Noehon nodded and answered that they remembered some of the locations. "Then please don't take us there yet."

That seemed to surprise their hosts, and Nitya allowed her expression to soften slightly as she explained. "If we begin where we already expect to find an answer, we may only notice the things that support it. I would rather see the plants first. Healthy sava vine, then the earliest affected place you know, just as Marrok suggested. After that, you can show us where the strangers worked and we can decide whether what we find there actually connects them." Her gaze shifted toward Marrok, a small spark of amusement appearing in her yellow eyes. "Apparently resisting seventeen theories is contagious."

The Noehons conversed briefly before their spokesperson motioned for them to follow. Nitya adjusted the strap of the small field bag she had brought from the ship and moved with their guides, naturally falling into step beside Marrok as they entered the jungle. The clearing disappeared with remarkable speed behind them. Within minutes their vessel had vanished behind layers of vegetation, and the route became something Nitya would scarcely have recognized as a path without the Noehons moving confidently along it. She listened as they walked, but rather than extending her awareness across the entire jungle and searching blindly for sickness, she narrowed her attention to the life immediately surrounding them. Insects moved through leaves, small animals retreated ahead of their approach, moisture gathered upon broad foliage, and tangled roots disappeared beneath dark soil. Occasionally she stopped to examine something their guides identified, learning the ordinary relationships of this ecosystem before asking herself what had gone wrong with them.

The sava vine appeared frequently now, climbing immense trunks in looping strands and spreading across exposed stone. Healthy leaves were broad and supple, while clusters of tiny insects moved freely across their undersides. Nitya paused beside one and gently held a leaf between her fingers, feeling its thickness and texture before letting it slip free. "This is what I wanted to see first," she murmured to Marrok as they resumed walking. "If the affected plants feel different, I want to know what normal feels like before I touch one." There was something strangely familiar about sharing the observation with him, despite how far they were from the monastery. Perhaps it was simply because so much of their first day together had been spent with their hands in soil, but she found herself enjoying the reversal. This time it was not Nitya teaching Marrok how to care for something they had planted. They were learning the land together.

Their guides led them deeper into the jungle, and the change did not announce itself dramatically. There was no sharp boundary of dead vegetation or sudden field of decay. Nitya noticed the silence first and gradually slowed her pace. It was not true silence, because the jungle remained alive around them, but one layer of its constant activity had diminished. The tiny insects she had seen crawling across the sava vine became less numerous until, several steps farther along, they disappeared entirely. Her gaze lifted toward the vines climbing the nearest trees, finding leaves that had curled inward upon themselves exactly as their hosts had described.

"Here," their guide said quietly. "First place."

Nitya stopped beside Marrok rather than immediately approaching the affected vine. Her eyes traveled from the curled leaves to the trunk supporting them, then downward toward the smaller plants beneath it and finally the damp soil surrounding the roots. Only then did she open herself more fully to the Force, carefully extending her awareness into the living system before them. She did not search for disease or poison because either assumption might shape what she expected to find. Instead, she remembered the feeling of the healthy jungle they had just crossed and listened for what was absent here, what had changed, and whether the disturbance belonged to one plant or extended through everything around it. After several quiet moments, she looked toward Marrok, anticipation and concern mingling in her expression. "Now we find out what changed."

Marrok Vorr

 

[Marrok Vorr]

Objective: The Forest Is Sick
Location: Noe'ha'on — Piryn Shar Sector, Expansion Region
Outfit: Gray Robes
Tags: Nitya Xeraic

Marrok answered Nitya's teasing with an exaggeratedly thoughtful expression. "Hope?" He glanced toward the Noehons. "You all heard her." A faint grin appeared. "I may need witnesses when she denies saying that later."

The humor faded naturally as Nitya began questioning their hosts. Marrok remained quiet, content to let her lead this portion of the investigation. This was precisely why they had come together. Where his experience made the journey through Sith territory safer, hers gave meaning to details he might otherwise have dismissed. Small insects disappearing before the vine changed. Roots remaining alive. Affected trees initially supporting sick vines, followed by neighboring trees whose roots grew nearby. His attention sharpened with each answer.

He was beginning to see a pattern, and the old instinct to construct an explanation from it immediately followed. Below the surface. Something moving through roots or soil. Perhaps whatever the strangers had been searching for had disturbed—Marrok stopped himself. Not yet. He glanced toward Nitya and found himself almost amused by how frequently her voice appeared inside his thoughts now, reminding him to observe before deciding.

The metallic water made restraint considerably harder. His gaze shifted immediately toward Nitya when the Noehons revealed that it had appeared after the strangers and before the plants changed. That was three points which could very easily become a line. He could already imagine several explanations. Mining contamination. Industrial runoff. A deliberate chemical agent. Some buried artifact disturbed by excavation. He said none of them.

When Nitya specifically asked their guides not to take them to the strangers' work sites, Marrok's brow lifted slightly. Then understanding replaced surprise. A slow smile appeared. "That's annoyingly sensible." The comment was directed toward Nitya with unmistakable affection. "If we went there now, I'd spend the entire time trying to prove the strangers responsible." He considered that admission for a moment. "And I'd probably be quite convincing."

Her observation about resisting seventeen theories being contagious earned a quiet chuckle. "Careful." He started after their guides. "At this rate I'll have you planting fruit trees and questioning spreadsheets before we're finished."

Marrok fell naturally into step beside Nitya as the jungle swallowed them. He allowed the Noehons to lead without questioning their route. What appeared to him as an impenetrable wall of vegetation clearly contained landmarks and pathways their guides understood effortlessly. That alone was another useful reminder. Unfamiliar did not mean unknowable. It simply meant someone else knew more than he did.

As Nitya stopped periodically, Marrok stopped with her. At first, he watched her more than the plants. He noticed what she touched. What she ignored. What questions she asked the Noehons. Which insects caught her attention. Gradually, however, he began looking for those things himself. The tiny creatures beneath leaves. How vines wrapped around trunks. Where roots broke through the soil. Which plants clustered together. He couldn't have explained what any of it meant. But perhaps understanding didn't always begin with knowing what something meant. Sometimes it began with noticing that it existed.

When Nitya held the healthy sava leaf between her fingers, Marrok leaned slightly closer. "This is what I wanted to see first. If the affected plants feel different, I want to know what normal feels like before I touch one."

Marrok nodded. "Establish the baseline before examining the anomaly." A brief pause. His mouth twitched. "I realize that sounded suspiciously like something destined for a chart." He reached toward another leaf, hesitating only long enough to ensure the Noehons offered no objection before gently rubbing it between thumb and forefinger. Supple. Cool from the humidity. Thinner than he had expected. He released it.

"But I understand." His gaze moved toward Nitya. "You can't recognize what has changed if you don't understand what it was before." There was satisfaction in being able to follow the lesson without having it explained further.

The jungle changed so gradually that Marrok initially wondered whether he was imagining it. Something was missing. His first instinct searched for a visible threat. Nothing. Then he realized Nitya had slowed. Marrok did the same. He listened.

There were still distant calls. Leaves still shifted. Water still moved somewhere beyond sight. But the constant tiny movements around the vines had diminished. He looked toward the nearest sava leaves. No insects. Marrok's expression tightened. "That's different." Then their guide confirmed it. First place.

Marrok remained beside Nitya as she studied the area. He made no attempt to hurry her. Instead, he looked. Actually looked. The curled vines were obvious now that he knew what healthy ones looked like. His attention followed them downward, toward the supporting tree and the damp earth surrounding its roots. The Noehons had said the roots remained alive. The trees changed afterward. Roots near roots. His gaze lingered upon the soil.

"How long after the vine changed did the tree begin showing symptoms?"

Their guide considered the question before clicking briefly with another Noehon. "Many days. Maybe twelve. Maybe fifteen."

"And the smaller plants?"

"After tree."

Marrok nodded. "So it began with the sava here too."

"Yes."

He looked toward the absence of insects. "Did the insects return after leaving?"

"No."

"Did you find them dead?"

The Noehon's antennae shifted. "No dead. Gone."

That distinction seemed important. Marrok crouched but resisted touching anything yet. "Have animals avoided this place as well?"

Their hosts exchanged another rapid series of clicks. "Small ones, yes. Some."

"Before or after the vine changed?"

A longer discussion followed. One Noehon apparently remembered something the others did not. "Before sleeping, maybe."

Marrok looked toward Nitya. That was interesting. The insects and perhaps some animals had reacted before the symptoms became obvious. Whatever was wrong here, other living things might have sensed it first.

Then Nitya opened herself more fully to the Force. Marrok recognized the shift without needing to see it. He remained still beside her. His own instinct was to reach immediately into the Force and begin searching, but he deliberately waited. He watched Nitya instead.

There was something beautiful about the way she approached problems like this. No confrontation. No demand that the world reveal itself. She listened. Marrok had once considered that passive. He knew better now.

When she finally looked toward him and said they would find what had changed, he smiled faintly. "Together." The word came without hesitation. Then Marrok closed his eyes. He allowed his awareness to expand. Not outward in search of enemies. Down. Toward the vine. The tree. The roots. The insects that were no longer there.

He tried to remember the sensation of the healthy jungle they had crossed rather than decide what sickness ought to feel like. Life remained here. That was the strange part. The vine was alive. The tree was alive. The soil crawled with microscopic existence beyond his ability to distinguish individually. Yet something about the harmony between them felt...Interrupted.

Marrok's brow furrowed. He opened his eyes. "I don't feel death." He glanced toward Nitya, careful not to present his impression as certainty. "At least, not the way I expected." His gaze dropped toward the soil again. "The plants feel alive. But everything here seems less..." He searched for the word. "Connected."

That sounded dangerously close to botanical philosophy. Marrok gave her a rueful glance. "I realize I've known you long enough that I'm now describing plants as having relationships." A faint smile surfaced before seriousness returned. "But that's what it feels like."

He gestured toward the sick vine, then the tree, and finally the empty leaves where insects should have been crawling. "Nothing here is failing entirely on its own. Something seems to be breaking the relationships between them." He shifted closer to Nitya, their shoulders nearly touching as they both looked toward the affected growth. "And if that's true..."

His eyes settled on the dark soil surrounding the roots. "...perhaps the sick vine isn't the beginning either." Marrok glanced toward their Noehon guide. "Before the insects disappeared, did anything else change here? Anything at all. Something so small you wouldn't have considered it part of the sickness."

The Noehons clicked among themselves for considerably longer this time. Eventually, one stepped forward and pointed toward the ground. "Glowmoss."

Marrok followed the gesture. "What happened to it?"

"Was here." The Noehon indicated several bare patches among the roots. "Always here. Little blue light at night." Its antennae lowered. "Then light stopped."

Marrok looked immediately toward Nitya. "Before the insects?"

The answer came quickly. "Yes."

Marrok remained crouched, staring at the apparently ordinary patches of earth. Now they had something that had changed first. Not the vine. Not the tree. Something at ground level. He could feel theories clamoring for attention. This time he merely smiled toward Nitya. "Seventeen." A beat. "I'm keeping every one of them to myself."

 

[Nitya Xeraic]

Nitya's smile appeared before Marrok had even finished counting his seventeen theories. She had felt some of them beginning to form herself, particularly once the Noehons mentioned the glowmoss, and she could only imagine how much more crowded his thoughts had become. "I'm impressed," she murmured, warmth mingling with the amusement in her voice. "Although now I'm wondering whether keeping all seventeen inside your head at once is actually healthier." Her shoulder brushed lightly against his as she shifted beside him, the contact small enough to be incidental if she had wanted it to be. She did not move away from it immediately.

His earlier description remained with her. Less connected. Marrok had looked faintly apologetic for describing plants as having relationships, but Nitya had found nothing strange about it. If anything, he had given language to part of what she had been trying to understand through the Force. "And you were right about the relationships," she added, turning her attention back toward the bare patches around the roots. "Plants compete, but they also depend upon other living things constantly. Soil organisms, insects, fungi, animals, and other plants. Remove one relationship, and sometimes nothing happens. Remove the right one, and the effects can travel much farther than whatever disappeared first." Her glowing eyes flicked toward him again. "So congratulations. You have progressed from digging holes to botanical philosophy remarkably quickly."

The humor softened as Nitya crouched near one of the places their guide had indicated. She did not touch the soil immediately. Instead, she studied the bare patch and the healthy growth surrounding it, trying to imagine the little blue glow that had once occupied the space. The chronology had changed considerably. First, the glowmoss stopped producing light; then the insects disappeared; then the sava vine entered its strange sleeping state. The tree followed days later, and the smaller plants beneath it changed after that. It was tempting to arrange those events into a simple chain of cause and effect, but Nitya reminded herself that they only knew the order in which the Noehons had been able to observe the changes.

She looked toward their guide. "Does glowmoss grow everywhere the sava vine grows, or only in certain places?" The question produced another brief exchange of clicks before the answer came. "Not everywhere. Likes wet earth. Shade. Old roots." Nitya nodded slowly. "And when its light stopped here, did the moss itself die?" The Noehon hesitated before crouching several paces away and indicating another patch. "Still there first. No light. Then brown. Then gone."

That distinction interested her. "So the glow stopped before the moss died." At the Noehon's confirmation, Nitya lowered her hand toward the earth without quite touching it. "Have you seen glowmoss stop shining before? During dry seasons, floods, unusual heat, anything like that?" This answer required considerably more discussion. Eventually, the spokesperson shook its head. "Less bright when dry. Comes bright after rain. Never dark while alive."

Nitya glanced toward Marrok. "Then the light wasn't simply disappearing because the moss was already dying." It was still only another observation, but an important one. Something had affected one of the moss's ordinary functions before the organism itself visibly failed, much as the sava vine later stopped flowering and producing shoots while remaining alive. She reached down at last and pressed two fingers gently into the exposed earth where the moss had once grown. The soil was wet and cool, apparently suitable for something their guides said preferred exactly those conditions.

Closing her eyes, Nitya let her awareness settle downward. She remembered the healthy jungle and the constant layering of life within it, not merely individual presences but interactions so numerous she could never have separated them all. Here, the Force was not absent. Marrok had been right about that too. Life remained abundant, yet the pattern felt thinner in places, as though pieces had been removed from something woven together without destroying the strands that remained.

After a few moments, she opened her eyes. "I don't think you're imagining it," she told Marrok quietly. "It doesn't feel poisoned in the way I expected either. There is life in the soil, life in the roots, life in the vine. But something isn't passing between them the way it should." She frowned slightly, dissatisfied with how imprecise the description sounded. "I don't know whether that's the cause or simply another symptom."

Nitya carefully rubbed a little of the damp soil between her fingertips before looking toward the Noehons again. "Is there somewhere nearby where the glowmoss is still healthy? Not back near where we landed, if possible. Somewhere close enough that the soil, water, shade, and plants around it should be similar to this place." One of the guides clicked to another, then pointed deeper into the jungle. "Yes. Not far. Other side water."

"Could you show us?" Nitya asked.

The Noehons agreed and began moving again, but Nitya remained crouched for another moment, brushing the damp earth from her fingers before rising beside Marrok. She looked once more at the empty patch where blue light had once glowed beneath the roots. The strangers remained important. So did the metallic taste in the water and whatever had been sought beneath the ground. Yet for the moment, those possibilities could wait.

"We have something better than seventeen theories now," she said as she fell into step beside him after their guides. "We have a comparison."

The path narrowed as they continued, forcing them closer together while the Noehons picked their way easily through vegetation that seemed determined to reclaim every opening. Nitya found herself aware of Marrok beside her even while much of her attention remained on their surroundings. Their first trip away from Oralis Prime had already become considerably stranger than she had anticipated, but she was beginning to think that was part of why she had needed to leave. At the monastery, she knew the soil, the gardens, and the rhythms of the forest well enough that familiarity could answer many questions before she thought to ask them. Here she had no such advantage. She had to listen again.

Ahead, one of the Noehons stopped beside a shallow stretch of dark water and pointed toward the opposite bank. Beneath the tangled roots of several enormous trees, tiny points of blue shimmered through the shadow.

Nitya slowed at the sight of them. Healthy glowmoss.

Her gaze moved from the faint blue light to the water separating them from it, then toward Marrok. A quiet smile touched her lips. "There's our normal."

This time, when she started forward with their guides, she knew exactly what she wanted to compare.

Marrok Vorr

 

[Marrok Vorr]

Objective: The Forest Is Sick
Location: Noe'ha'on — Piryn Shar Sector, Expansion Region
Outfit: Gray Robes
Tags: Nitya Xeraic

Marrok's eyes shifted briefly toward Nitya when her shoulder brushed against his. Incidental or not, he had begun noticing these little moments between them more readily. More importantly, he had stopped instinctively wondering what he was supposed to do about them. He simply enjoyed them. So his shoulder remained lightly against hers as his attention returned to the bare earth.

"You're probably right." A quiet sigh followed. "Suppressing seventeen theories may simply result in one exceptionally complicated eighteenth theory."

He considered that possibility with exaggerated seriousness. "I may need supervision." His eyes flicked toward her. "Fortunately, I appear to have brought someone qualified."

Her explanation of the relationships between plants earned a thoughtful nod. Marrok looked again at the vine, the supporting tree, the vanished moss and the leaves that should have been crawling with insects. Seen separately, each seemed like its own problem. Seen together…Something was unraveling.

Then Nitya congratulated him on his rapid advancement into botanical philosophy. Marrok's expression became appropriately solemn. "From digging holes to botanical philosophy in a matter of days." He shook his head. "At this rate, you'll have me teaching gardening by the end of the month." A pause. "Which would be disastrous for everyone involved."

He let Nitya handle the detailed questioning of their hosts. She was better at it here. Not necessarily because Marrok couldn't ask questions, but because she knew which questions mattered. He wandered several paces from the affected vine while she spoke, examining the surrounding area with considerably less diligence than Nitya applied to the soil. He crouched beside another exposed root. Touched the bark of a neighboring tree. Turned over a fallen branch with the toe of his boot. Nothing announced itself as obviously wrong. That bothered him almost as much as obvious destruction would have. "Do animals eat the glowmoss?"

One of the Noehons answered after a brief clicking exchange. "Some small ones. Insects. Crawlers."

"Anything that depends on it?"

Another exchange. "Little shell-crawlers hide beneath. Eat growth around it. Sometimes moss."

Marrok looked toward the empty patch. "And those disappeared too?"

"Not see them here now." He nodded. Another relationship missing. He could practically hear Nitya congratulating him on the observation already.

When she established that the glowmoss stopped shining before dying, Marrok returned closer to her. "So something interferes with what the plant does before it kills it." His gaze moved toward the sleeping sava vine. "And then the vine stops doing what it normally does." No flowers. No new shoots. Still alive. He frowned. "That feels important."

He immediately raised a hand slightly. "Not a theory." A faint grin. "An observation." He was learning the rules.

As Nitya pressed her fingers into the earth and closed her eyes, Marrok fell silent. He watched the surrounding jungle rather than intruding upon her concentration. This was where their abilities diverged. Marrok could sense that something was wrong, but Nitya seemed capable of listening to the living environment with a patience and sensitivity he didn't possess. He found himself admiring that. Not simply her ability. Her.

There was a quiet confidence to her here that he had seen in the monastery gardens, but on an unfamiliar world it revealed something different. She didn't need to know the answer to be comfortable searching for it. Marrok had spent much of his life believing uncertainty was weakness. Nitya seemed perfectly content to admit uncertainty and then learn. Perhaps that was its own kind of strength.

When her eyes opened, he listened closely. "Something isn't passing between them..." He repeated the phrase quietly. His gaze dropped toward the roots. "Energy? Nutrients? Something biological?" He glanced at her. "Or something we don't have a name for yet."

The temptation to immediately explain it remained. But it no longer controlled him. "Cause or symptom." He nodded. "Then we keep looking."

When Nitya requested a nearby healthy sample, Marrok immediately understood why. Similar soil. Similar water. Similar environment. Different result. He looked mildly pleased with himself for following the logic before she explained it. Then she announced that they had something better than seventeen theories. "A comparison." Marrok smiled. "Considerably less exciting." He fell into step beside her. "But apparently more useful." A beat passed. "I suppose this means the eighteen-theory model is cancelled."

The narrowing path eventually forced them almost shoulder-to-shoulder. Marrok did not object. Quite the opposite. Branches and broad leaves occasionally required one of them to yield space to the other, and somewhere along the way Marrok found himself subtly holding foliage aside for Nitya before passing through himself. It was mundane. Almost domestic in its simplicity. And he liked it.

He also investigated as they walked, though his version of botanical examination remained decidedly less sophisticated than hers. He touched several sava leaves. Checked beneath them for insects. Examined the occasional patch of exposed soil. Once he crouched beside something he thought might be glowmoss, stared at it for several seconds, then looked toward one of their guides.

"Glowmoss?"

The Noehon's antennae twitched. "No."

Marrok stared at the entirely ordinary growth. "I knew that." A series of clicking sounds passed between two of their guides. Marrok narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Were they laughing at me?"

One Noehon answered without hesitation. "Yes."

Marrok looked toward Nitya. "I preferred it when only you did that." The grin accompanying the complaint ruined any possibility of taking it seriously.

When they reached the water, however, his demeanor became more attentive. He followed Nitya's gaze across the shallow channel. Blue points shimmered beneath the roots on the opposite bank. Healthy glowmoss. "There it is." Marrok crouched near the water rather than immediately crossing.

His attention moved between both banks. Same jungle. Same apparent moisture. Same enormous trees. Yet one place supported glowing moss while the other had lost it. He reached toward the water, stopping before touching it. "Is this the same waterway that passes near the sick place?"

Their guide shook its head. "No. Different water."

Marrok nodded. "Does this water ever taste like metal?"

"No."

That earned a glance toward Nitya. Interesting. Still not proof. He was becoming irritatingly responsible about that distinction. Marrok rose and looked across toward the glowing moss. "There's our normal." He repeated her words with a smile. Then he gestured toward the shallow water. "After you, botanical philosopher."

He allowed her perhaps half a step before following close beside her. "Although..." His tone became playfully serious. "If anything in that water attempts to eat you, I believe it officially leaves the plant category." He glanced toward Nitya. "So I'll be permitted to intervene without waiting for a comparative sample."

Once across, Marrok crouched beside the healthy glowmoss. This time he did not immediately reach for it. He looked first. Tiny blue points shimmered beneath the roots, casting faint light across wet earth. Small insects moved around and over it. One of the shell-crawlers their hosts had mentioned disappeared beneath a luminous patch when Marrok shifted closer.

Life interacting with life. He could see the difference now. Not understand it. But see it. Marrok extended his awareness cautiously through the Force. The contrast was subtle. Yet compared directly with the affected place, the sensation was unmistakable. "Here." His voice lost its teasing edge. "I can feel it."

He looked toward Nitya. "The connection." His gaze returned to the moss. "Whatever was missing back there... it isn't missing here." Marrok moved several paces around the tree, examining the surrounding roots. He was hardly systematic about it. He simply followed what caught his attention until something near the waterline made him stop.

A section of exposed soil had collapsed slightly beneath a root. He crouched. "Probably nothing." That disclaimer alone represented remarkable progress. Marrok brushed aside a little loose earth. Several pale, threadlike strands ran through it. He didn't touch them. Instead, he looked toward Nitya. "You should see this."

One of the Noehons approached and crouched nearby. Marrok indicated the pale network. "Normal?"

The Noehon leaned closer. "Root-thread."

"From the moss?"

"No." The guide searched for the Basic word. "Small life. In earth. Grows with roots. Everywhere healthy."

Marrok's expression changed. He looked toward Nitya. "Was it present at the sick site?"

The Noehon clicked uncertainly. "Do not know."

Marrok rose immediately. For perhaps half a second, he looked exactly like the man who would have rushed straight back to check. Then he caught himself. His gaze settled on Nitya. A slow smile replaced the urgency. "I have a thought." He held up one finger. "One."

The smile broadened. "I've reduced seventeen theories to one question." He gestured toward the pale threads beneath the soil. "Does our sick patch have these?" Then, with a playful tilt of his head: "At this rate, you may actually make an investigator out of me."

 

[Nitya Xeraic]

Nitya had made it several steps into the water before Marrok set his conditions for intervention, and she looked back at him, amusement brightening her glowing eyes. "Very well. If something in the water attempts to eat me, you have my permission to suspend the scientific method, although I reserve the right to be curious about what it was afterward." The water tugged gently around her boots, dark enough that she could not see much beneath its surface, and she found herself rather glad when Marrok followed close behind. She had no genuine expectation of being dragged beneath the water by some previously undiscovered predator, but she liked having him there all the same.

The sight of the glowmoss drew her attention once they reached the opposite bank. Up close, its blue light was delicate rather than brilliant, hundreds of tiny points gathered beneath the shelter of old roots. Insects moved freely around it, and one of the shell-crawlers disappeared beneath a luminous patch as they approached. Nitya crouched nearby and rested her fingertips against the damp ground, allowing her awareness to settle into the life around her rather than reaching for anything in particular. Now that she had experienced the affected site, the difference was easier to recognize. Nothing here felt dramatically stronger through the Force, nor could she isolate some singular presence that had been absent before. Instead, life seemed to overlap in countless small ways, passing through and around itself in patterns she had sensed countless times without ever having reason to consciously separate them.

When Marrok said he could feel the connection too, Nitya looked toward him with a pleased smile. There was something satisfying about having reached the same impression independently, particularly when neither of them could yet put a precise name to what they were sensing. "That's what I was trying to describe before. I don't know what the connection actually is yet, but I can feel the difference more clearly here. Whatever has changed at the other site, it isn't simply that individual organisms are becoming sick." She remained crouched while Marrok moved around the tree, content to let him follow whatever caught his attention. He had stopped waiting for her to tell him what mattered, and apparently had even learned to preface discoveries with the possibility that they might mean nothing.

That alone nearly earned him another lesson in botanical philosophy.

Instead, his invitation led her around the tree to a section of soil that had collapsed beneath one of the roots. Nitya crouched beside him and leaned closer to examine the pale threads woven through the darker earth. They were remarkably easy to overlook, even exposed, and she listened closely while the Noehon explained that the root-thread was a small form of life found throughout healthy soil. When Marrok proudly reduced his seventeen theories to a single question, she gave him an appropriately impressed look. "One question. You really are learning restraint." Her gaze returned to the threads before she added, "And I don't know. We didn't look deeply enough at the other site. I touched the soil where the glowmoss had disappeared, but we never moved any of it aside. These could have been beneath my fingers, and I wouldn't have known."

The uncertainty did not bother her. If anything, it gave them the clearest next comparison they had found so far. Nitya indicated the pale network without touching it and asked their guide, "You called it root-thread. Is it always this pale? And does it grow around the glowmoss, the sava vine, and the trees, or only some of them?" The Noehon lowered itself closer and explained that healthy thread was pale or yellow-white, grew throughout wet earth, and could be found around many kinds of roots. Tree, vine, and moss alike were touched by it, while older roots surrounded by abundant thread tended to grow well.

Nitya followed one strand with her eyes until it vanished back beneath the soil. She was tempted to attach significance to that relationship, especially after everything else they had learned, but they still had no idea whether anything about the root-thread had actually changed. "Then we should see whether it's present at the first site before we decide it means anything." She rose, brushing damp soil from her fingertips, and glanced toward Marrok as his comment about becoming an investigator returned to her. "Although I think you may have been one before you met me. You simply investigated different things." The instincts were already there, after all. He noticed inconsistencies, followed patterns, and paid attention to details that might mean danger. Nitya's smile warmed as she regarded him. "Watching you interrogate moss is new, though."

She asked the Noehons whether they could return to the first affected place and examine beneath the soil where the glowmoss had disappeared. Once their guides agreed, Nitya followed them back toward the shallow water with Marrok beside her. Their investigation had narrowed from an entire jungle inexplicably falling ill to something so fine it could disappear beneath a fingernail, and she found herself unexpectedly excited by the possibility, even though she knew it might lead nowhere. "It could be completely unchanged," she reminded Marrok as they crossed. "So you're not allowed to spend the entire walk deciding what the root-thread means before we establish that it's actually different." She let that restriction settle for a moment before looking sidelong at him, amusement tugging at her mouth. "If it is different, however, I'll allow you eighteen theories."

By the time they returned, the affected area looked different to Nitya than it had when they first arrived. The curled sava leaves were the same, as was the bare earth where the glowmoss had disappeared, but now she knew what should have occupied the empty spaces. There should have been insects moving beneath the leaves and tiny shell-crawlers sheltering among points of blue light. Somewhere below, perhaps, there should also have been pale threads winding among the roots.

Nitya returned to the same patch she had examined earlier and crouched, placing her fingertips against the damp earth. The last time she had been here, she had been concerned with what the soil felt like and what she could sense through the Force. She had never actually looked beneath it. She glanced toward the Noehons and indicated the place where the glowmoss had once grown. "Here?" At their confirmation, she carefully moved aside the uppermost layer of earth, disturbing only as much as necessary to expose what lay beneath.

Now they could find out whether Marrok's one question was about to become eighteen theories.

Marrok Vorr