The next surprise came when Kylee slowed, approaching down the line of smashed trees, hovering maybe fifty meters above the crash site. To Falise’s amazement, she could see the branches turning this way and that; the entire length of the wreck site moved. No, it writhed. The sight of it reminded her of convulsions. The ripped and shredded forest suffered in agony.

Then Falise fixed on the shuttle itself. All the splintered debris piled up and wrapped around the shuttle’s dented and damaged front was slowly flexing, curling, branches interlocked and wrestling in a slow-motion struggle. The notion hit her that the dying trees were battling to pull free where the shuttle’s weight pinned them.

“That’s amazing,” Falise gasped.

“Yeah,” Kylee slowed them to a hover. “Kind of creep-freaks you, doesn’t it?”

“What cleared that space around the shuttle?” Falise pointed to the bare soil around the wreck.

“Unhurt trees getting away from the trouble.” Kylee changed the airtruck’s pitch for a better look. “We call them trees. Consider them plants, but my suspicion is that they’re a whole different kingdom, like nothing we know on Earth. We’re just not smart enough, haven’t done the research, to figure out how trees live on Donovan. You ask me, they are sentient. Like so much of the life on the planet, they think, process information. Probably through TriNA like the animals do.”

“Fascinating.” Falise studied the downed shuttle. “Think anyone’s alive down there?”

Kylee drifted the airtruck closer to the downed shuttle, saying, “Makarov had his shit together. Putting the shuttle down here, on the side of the mountain on this thin soil gives us a chance. If he’d set down in the deep forest, we’d have never found it.”

“I don’t see anyone. I . . . Wait. The hatch over the command deck is open. Yes, there. Look. See it?”

Kylee backed the airtruck around until she could see the person waving from the open hatch. “Got it.” She wheeled the airtruck around again. “No place we can put down here. The clearing around the shuttle’s not open enough. And there’s no telling if those dying trees down in the scar could get a hold on the airtruck. They foul the fans, we’re screwed.”

“So, what do we do?”

“There.” Kylee pointed up at the slope. “That outcrop. Looks like bare basalt. Let’s go take a look.”

Falise stared down as the airtruck skimmed the treetops. As it passed, the branches turned to follow them. The effect was as if the chabacho and aquajade were watching them.

At the outcrop, Kylee slowed. “Okay, see how you can make out the patterns? That’s where the ferngrass and musk weed can find enough soil to root. Means the dirt’s not more than a centimeter deep, and you can see patches of open rock. This will do.”