Inspired by an abstract picture showing a tree trunk and spreading boughs with coloured bubbles and shapes

There is a tree, a very special tree that permeates the Universe. No wandering astronaut would see it, but it is there. It appears as a giant tree on planets, its branches spreading over acres of land, and from it life comes. No intelligent being ever sees it, but where it is, life is lush. This tree, in its many guises, produces, nourishes and protects life.

The life this tree creates comes in many forms, from such creatures as the gnat, to the elephant, or the giant blue whale. Out in space, where the tree actually exists, brilliant bubbles float off and drift around until they contact a planet. On some planets, the bubble sits and nothing happens, until a strong wind blows it off into space again. When a bubble lands on a planet where life can grow and develop, the bubble bursts, and minute particles spray out, spreading far and wide. From these particles the first forms of life come.

On some planets, grass like growth covers the ground. Other particles grow into trees, and flowers. Primitive life forms appear, and so on. Intelligent life only appears on planets where conditions are right; water, and temperatures that do not get too cold or too hot, and food sources are plentiful.

These intelligent beings are not all the same in appearance. Some would seem grotesque to us here on Earth, perhaps having tentacles instead of arms and legs. Or with eyes spaced all around the ‘head’, and a slit for a nose, and a mouth filled with two or three rows of teeth.

But whatever the form, or the appearance, the Tree treasures them all. The Tree is aware of everything that happens to any part of its creation, but more so of the intelligent life. It is in some ways strongly alive in them. When an intelligent creature is harmed, the Tree feels the injury, and weeps.

Many of the bubbles spreading out from the Tree hold teachings for them, telling them how to get along together, and to accept life forms not like themselves. The bubbles also have healing powers, and whenever possible will brush against an injury and heal it so completely it is as if it had never happened.

There are stories I could tell about some of these creatures. Perhaps I will, another day; a story about Flextoo; or Binh, who could easily be from Earth. Or the Greenleaves, who have no individual names. But those tales will have to wait. Perhaps, another day.

Tree of Life – Binh

Robert Clarke tamped the tobacco down in his pipe as his eyes roved over the children. Johnny was staring disconsolately out the window at the rain. It was coming down in sheets, as it had been doing for the past three days. The other children were on the floor desultorily colouring, putting puzzles together or reading. Susie had been staring at the same page for five minutes.

“Great Granda,” Johnny said as he turned from the window, “do you suppose it will ever stop raining?”

Rob drew on the pipe to get it going as he turned to look at the boy. “Well, now, son, I don’t know. Might be, it will rain for forty days and forty nights. The river is already flooding the low lands. Maybe we should go out to the barn and start building us an ark.” His eyes twinkled as all the children gasped, staring at him, wide eyed. “Well, probably not. The Good Lord did promise never to do that again. It will probably rain for a couple more days, though.”

Johnny sighed. “I’m so bored, Great Granda! If Mom and Dad were home, maybe they’d take us to town, to a show, or even just to the shopping centre. I want to go climb trees and chase the goats, or something!” He flopped down on the floor, as the other children voiced their agreement.

“Well, I guess I could bend the rules a bit and tell you about one of my trips in space. Would that help?”

The children sat up straighter, faces brightening, and cheered. “Oh, yes, please, Great Granda, please!” they chorused.

“All right, I will.” Rob settled more comfortably in his chair, took a sip from the glass by his side, and smiled. “I’ll tell you about the Kaptites, as we called them. They live on the planet Kap Three. It obits the M1 star Kapteyn, in the small, faint constellation now called Pictor, Latin for painter. Originally, it was called Equuleus Pictoris, the ‘painter’s easel’. It is about 13 light years from Earth.

“Since Kapteyn is a smaller, cooler star than Sol, Kap Three orbits closer to it than Earth does to Sol. We were looking for more planets where humans could settle, and this was the first possible candidate. However, when we orbited the planet, we saw signs of intelligent life. Since our mission included trying to make friends with other intelligent species, we went closer, and tried radio contact, with no result.

“The captain called for a landing party, and I was chosen as the botanist. We had a couple of linguists, a geologist, and other scientific types, and a squad of twenty marines. We landed in an open, empty field within sight of what appeared to be a small town, disembarked, and waited.

“After about two hours, we saw wheeled vehicles coming from the town, four of them. The second one had some kind of flag or pennant flying from the windshield. ‘Looks like someone important is coming,’ Lieutenant Nelson said. ‘Look sharp, people, we want to make a good impression. All weapons holstered or grounded, we do not want to seem threatening.’

“The vehicles arrived, and the people got out. There was a loud gasp from everyone. They looked a lot like us! Any one of them could have been dropped in the middle of any city on Earth or Mars, and blended right in.

“They formed up in ranks and surrounded the one who was dressed in what seemed to be a formal suit. It was one piece, in a very deep red, with gold piping on the collar, sleeves and down the outside of the legs. He stepped forward, a pace or two in front of the others, and raised his right hand. He was about five foot seven inches tall, with faintly reddish skin, a round face and dark red hair. His eyes were a deep blue, and when he spoke, his voice was in the tenor range. The language was strange to our ears.

“’Tien glomet Binh. Dreet braggin pless wegrain, barishen,’ he said.

“Lieutenant Nelson turned to Sergeant Brown, the linguist. ‘Can you make anything out of that?’ he asked.

“Brown looked at his translator. ‘My name is Binh. Much pleasure gives welcome, stranger’, according to this.’ He tapped the translator. ‘Never had it work so quickly, Lieutenant,’ he looked up with a grin. ‘This might turn out to be easy.’

“We stayed there three months, and it was as easy as Brown predicted. Binh was the Blenishtreen of Kap three, or President of the world. He invited us all to his city, where we mingled with the citizens; we were accepted freely by all, and feasted at least once a week by different people. Not all of the feasts were given by those in government, many of the citizens invited groups into their homes. Usually they were botanists, geologists and other scientists, gathering together to compare knowledge with ours. Some were just ordinary folk, shop keepers, woodworkers and such. I enjoyed those banquets more than the formal ones.

“At last the Captain radioed saying we had to return to the ship, as the astrophysicist aboard had found indications of another possible planet approximately 32 light years away. We said our reluctant goodbyes, and told Binh that Ambassadors from Earth would arrive within a few months. They would set up trade and communication with the Kaptites. He expressed his pleasure at that, and his sorrow that we must go.

“And that is the story of Binh, the Kaptite.”

“Thanks, Great Granda,” Johnny said. “Will you tell us some more?”

“Not now, Johnny. I have talked as much as I can, for now. Another time, perhaps.” The children chorused ‘aww!’ and then thanked him.

“I would like to see those Kaptites,” Billy said. “I want to be like you, Great Granda; I want to be an astronaut.”

“That would be good, Billy. But to do that, you have to do really well in school. Study hard and you just might make it. Now, I must rest.” Rob settled back in his chair, touched a button and the chair adjusted so he was reclining, and closed his eyes. The children went quietly back to their colouring and puzzles, content for a while. But they still wished the rain would stop.

Tree of Life – Greenleafs

It was summer holiday time for the children, and the whole family was gathered in the solarium. Since they didn’t have to be up early for school, the children were allowed to stay up late. They were all laying on an opened out double sleeping bag, so they could look at the stars easily. All the adults were seated in recliners, relaxed and at ease, drinks at hand, and Great Granda Rob was puffing contentedly on his pipe.

The solarium was all glass except for the wall leading into the rest of the house, giving an incredible view of the night sky. It was a clear night and the only light in the room was a dim glow from the dining room, so the sky was like a huge sheet of black velvet, covered in a myriad of sparkling diamonds.

“Grandfather,” Paul, the children’s father, said “I think tonight it would be good if you would tell us all something about your experiences in space. I know we usually ask you not to as they do too much bragging in school. But with such a view as we have tonight, it would be an appropriate subject. Will you, please?”

“Oh, yes, please, Great Granda,” the children lifted their heads and gazed at him, eyes begging.

“Yes, I agree. Especially since tonight we have such a clear, sharp view of the constellations.” He picked up a laser pointer, and aimed it, saying: “This is Aquila, The Eagle, can you see it?” They all looked, and after some help, even the children saw it. “All right, see that very bright star?” he aimed the pointer at the star. “It is called Altair, and it is the southern-most star in the Summer Triangle. It is 16.73 light years from earth. It’s a variable star. That means that it is sometimes really bright and sometimes fainter. Its surface temperature varies from 6,900 to 8,500 Kelvins. That would be, at its coolest, 11,960.3 degrees in Fahrenheit. So it can get really really hot.

“We found a planet that was just in the habitable zone. It had more water than earth, and was very hot and humid. We found an area partly up a mountain that was solid enough for a landing craft, and put down there. From space, we could see that where there was land, it was green, so we thought it might do for human settlement. Higher up the mountain was drier, and rockier, but the slopes around us were covered in trees, very like the pines, cedars and other firs of earth.

“Lower, the trees were more like oaks, maple, and beech. We followed a river that ran down the mountainside, and eventually came to a large delta area. Here the trees were different. The leaves were somewhat like elms, but they were very thick. On some branches, they were small, and almost normal elm leaves. But as they grew bigger, they thickened, until they were fat. At the stem end, they were as big around as two green apples, joined; about four and a half inches wide by four inches thick. Where the stem was, there was a dip that went down in a crease back and front, forming two separate but joined heads. And I mean heads.

“At first we didn’t realize it, but when we looked closer, we saw that there was a set of eyes on each side of the front of the head. From there the ‘leaf’ narrowed like an elm leaf, until it was about two and a half inches from back to front, and about two inches wide. From there it divided into two floppy legs. In all, they were about six inches long.

“From where an ear would be on a normal head, a tentacle grew, about three inches long, with six small tentacle fingers. Later, we saw that they had retractable thorn-like claws. These were used for digging, or fighting the insects and other pests that would have infested the trees.

“When a Greenleaf, as we called them, was fully grown, it dropped from the tree, and immediately started working. Some of the insect types were domesticated, so some tended them. They were used to pull their version of the plow, and wagon, and as food and fertilizer. The tentacle arm could attach to an insect and all the liquid was sucked out though it. What was left they piled around the roots of the tree as mulch.”

“Great Granda, I don’t think it was nice of them to do that to their tame insects,” Susie said.

“Hmm. Susie, do you like roast beef?” Rob asked.

“Sure, it’s really good!” she grinned.

“And where does the roast come from? And I don’t mean the butcher shop.” Rob waited.

“From the farmers,” Susie said

“Where do they get it?”

Susie paused, then he saw it come to her. “From the cows.” She was sad.

“Right and we used the skin for shoes, and belts, and other things. Even the bones can be ground up and added to fertilizer. So the Greenleafs were only doing the same as we do.

“That’s how we realised that they were intelligent. They herded ‘cattle’, protected their families, fought predators, and gathered food for the herd. When the big rains came, we saw them build levees to keep the water from drowning the home trees, and their crops and herds.

“They didn’t have mouths, so they couldn’t talk, but we did communicate with them. Several of us had been hearing high toned, almost bell-like sounds, from the first contact. Sarg. Brown turned his translator’s audio to the highest sensitivity, and was suddenly hearing voices. It took a while, but eventually we were able to talk with them. They were excited to meet people from another planet.

“Some of them had spent years studying the stars. They could see the other planets around Altair and had come to the conclusion that there must be other worlds around other stars. We carried some of the elders up the mountain to see our landing craft, and showed them the mother ship through the telescope, where it orbited the planet. They were highly impressed, but sad, too. They knew that they would never be able to make such vehicles themselves.

“We spent the better part of a year there, and arranged for an ambassador and crew to come. The forests on the mountains were a big draw, as earth had few forests left, and most of the planets we’d settled were still short on them, too.

“When we left, they were looking forward to the ambassador, making plans for trade, figuring out what we could bring them.” Rob leaned back in his chair, and took a sip form his glass. “Now, I understand, we have a small thriving colony there, and trade is good. They were very pleasant folks, the Greenleafs. I like to look at Altair, and remember them.”

They all sat in silence for a while, looking up at the sky, and thinking about the strange little leaf-like creatures who lived far away on that hot, humid planet.

Tree of Life – Flextoo

Once again it was a holiday for the children, and the family were gathered around the fireplace. The only light in the room came from the fire, and the big Holiday tree in front of the large window. The children were on the floor with books, though none were reading. Mother, Father, Grandfather and Great Granda sat in silence, contemplating the tree, and the Tree of Life that it represented.

Susie put her book aside and got up, walking over to the tree. She gently fingered some of the ornaments, lifting one cupped in her hand. “Great Granda,” she turned to look at him, “this looks like the one you told us about on the planet near Kapteyn. I think you called him Banh.”

She dropped that one and lifted another, higher up and farther around the tree. “Oh, and this one is like the Greenleafs! It’s cute, I liked them they were so funny.”

The other children went over to the tree, and began studying the ornaments. Many of them represented everyday things, animals, birds, people, but there were two dozen new ones that caught their attention. With exclamations of delight, they examined them.

Rob lifted his cane, stood, and walked over to join the children. “I had them made,” he said, “so you could see what other people in the universe look like. At least, the ones I helped discover. Now that you have stopped bragging about me, I can tell you about all of my trips.”

The children cheered. “What about this one, Great Granda?” Johnny reached up, stretching as high as he could, to touch one that was shaped like a tortoise. “Where do they live?”

Rob reached over and lifted the ornament from the tree. It did look like a tortoise, with a yellowish brown carapace and lighter shade plastron. The head, neck, legs and tail were chocolate coloured. It was depicted with its neck stretched up, standing on its back legs.

“That is from my last trip. I was Admiral of the fleet by that time, and we were on a long trip. Their star is Kepler 69, found by the Kepler satellite in the first quarter of the twenty first century. It is 2,700 light years from Earth, and it took us five years to get there. We would never have made it, except for the advances that made it possible to travel through hyperspace.

“There are four planets orbiting Kepler 69, but only Kepler 69c is habitable. It is mainly a water world, but there are places where underwater mountains break the surface as islands. Many of these have sandy beaches, and that is where the females go to lay their eggs.

“Like the sea turtles of Earth, once the eggs are laid, they are left to fend for themselves. Their main enemy is a huge bird that nests in the higher regions of the islands, and at hatching time, they fly over the area, watching for the hatchlings as they try to make their way to the water.

“Each female lays two to three hundred eggs, so even with death flying and diving overhead, at least half make it. Once in the water, they are mostly safe from predators, though there are some fish that snack on them when they can.

“We found an island big enough for the lander and a few shelters. Once there, we launched boats, and did our best to make contact. We had seen structures on the beaches that were not natural, so knew there was some kind of intelligence there.

“We finally made contact with the head of one clan, Flextoo by name. At least, that is the closest we could come to his name. He was 8 feet long, and about five feet wide, and his eyes were large and emerald green. It was odd to see him on land, as there he stood on his hind feet, and could use his front feet like hands.

“I had many long talks with him, and found him highly intelligent, and eager to hear of other worlds, and other peoples. They used pearls to decorate their shells, the biggest pearls I had ever seen. I suggested that they could use them, and the nacre from the shells, as trade items. We showed him many things we could trade for them, and he was intrigued with some of our tools.

“In the end, we figured out how they could be adapted to fit their feet instead of hands, and how to power them using the ocean water. I know you have seen the decorations on the city Holiday tree, in the main square.”

“Oh, yes, Great Granda,” Lilly said. “They shine so, and I can see so many colours in them. The tree looks like it has little lights on even in the daytime. They are beautiful! And the orb on top, it glows, and it’s so big!”

“Right,” Rob said. “The decorations are made from the nacre from the shells of the oyster-like creatures that make the pearls. And the orb on top is one of the pearls. I like to look at them, and remember that I was in command of the fleet who found Flextoo and his people, and made friends and trading partners with them.”

Rob carefully hung the ornament back on the tree, and stood for a moment contemplating it. Then he turned and made shooing motions at the children.

“Sit down again, youngsters; it’s time for the Tree of Life pledge, and the life drink.”

Johnny grinned up at him. “Aye, aye, Admiral sir! He saluted, giggled, and ran back to the fireplace. The adults were all standing and smiling, glasses in hand. They raised them in salute, “To the Admiral!” they all cried, tipped glasses to lips, and drank. Rob smiled. He was so proud of his family, and pleased that he had been able to see a fourth generation well on its way. His daughter in law busied herself refilling glasses for the solemn ceremony to come.