“You have a quetzal?” Valdez was walking warily, scanning. In the shadow of the trees, the reflection of her HUD’s glow could be seen on her face. “Thought they were the enemy.”

Talina told her, “It depends on the lineage. Nothing on Donovan is ever what it seems.”

The difference in the forest here surprised Talina. It wasn’t only the almost-grating chime. Or the smell. The trees were entirely new species. She couldn’t recognize any of them, though they followed the same trilateral morphology. The roots they trod on, however, were still roots. And still dangerous, especially as she and her team made their way down the slope and the depth of the soil increased.

Didn’t matter that it was a different continent, different forest, and different trees, the rules were the same. She discovered that when they came upon the first toppled tree. Its neighbors had managed to rip it loose, uproot it, and cast it down. Muldare led them around the gaping hole in the ground. The surrounding trees had already filled the opening in the sky, were crowding the space their vanquished foe had lost.

“Never understood why the trees fight with each other,” Muldare growled.

“Because they can,” Dek replied. “Sort of reminds you of people, doesn’t it?”

Valdez—stepping carefully on the squirming root mat—asked, “Security Officer Perez, people keep telling me you’ve got Donovanian TriNA, that it’s changed your body. How does that work?”

Talina watched something that looked like a white glowing snake slither into a gap in the root mat. “I’m stronger, my senses are better, and I’ve got three beings inside me. One wants me dead, the other wants me alive, and the part of me that’s me wants them gone.”

They encountered the first impressive tangle of interlocked roots as the smaller trees gave way to towering forest giants. One by one, they climbed over the three-meter-high barrier.

On the other side, Briah pointed to a cluster of what looked like purple puffballs. “Don’t get close, they shoot out toxins.”

As Muldare started across the root mat for the next bunched cluster of roots, Talina whipped her rifle around. The small scimitar had camouflaged itself but fled as they got close. On its paddle-like legs, it scurried up the root cluster and disappeared on the other side.

“Lot of those around here,” Muldare said. “Some are huge.”

“Yeah,” Dek told her. “We ran into the like at Two Falls Gap. Hard to kill.”

Carefully, they scaled the root cluster, skirting wide of the various pod-covered vines. And then there were what Talina called spike-ball vines: a blue-green, thick-stemmed, hanging vine with what looked like tennis-ball-sized fruits covered with hundreds of needle-like thorns.