Emerald

Analysis

Thoughtfully, Mil studies the tiny slice of the plant sample on screen, magnified by 1000. Koshi cut the exploration trip short after they were able to collect some unburnt pieces of vegetation. He wasn't ready to take the risk of advancing into the jungle covering most of the planetary surface on this first outing. Mil is disappointed by the delay, hardly suppressing her curiosity. Nevertheless she must admit that the captain's decision is reasonable.

She completes her notes and turns to the last sample, the one she kept for the end. It's a piece of wood Carlos cut with his handheld laser out of the giant tree trunk. He had to climb along one of the impressive roots up to the actual trunk, an endeavour that caused Koshi's sceptical frown to deepen and Mil's heart to beat faster. But the risk paid well.

The sample has the form of a cone, the tree's bark forming the almost palm sized base. Carlos managed to cut deep enough to reach the actual wood core at the tip of the cone. Mil prepares some thin sections for microscopic study. In parallel, she runs a chemical component analysis. The lab equipment is efficient and state of the art, still somehow surprising to her, on this old ship.

At first sight, the morphology of the wood is very similar to the one of an Earth tree. Only a more detailed study shows some significant differences. The blueish-brown bark is exceptionally thick and consists of a strong and very elastic outer layer, covering an almost white inner layer that resembles a padding. Mil hesitates to use the expressions bark and bast, as on Earth, the bark of a tree this impressive would probably be rough and furrowed. This one, to the contrary, is smooth, with the exception of a pore-like opening, as thick as her finger, leading like an open channel into the core of the wood.

Beneath the soft padding, she observes a fine layer resembling the cambium, where probably the growth of the tree takes place as new cells are built. The wood beneath shows many parallels to Earth's trees as well. Tracheids and vessels reaching from the roots to the crown, probably transporting nutrients and water, are regularly distributed and form clearly discernible rings. Zones with bigger cells alternate with rings of denser wood. Mil wonders if they signal seasonal growth, like year rings. The big cells might signify fast growth, while the tiny ones would indicate times with significantly reduced tree growth. Mil accepts as a working hypothesis that the rings are caused by seasonal changes in climatic conditions on Emerald. Swiftly she counts the rings on her sample.

They are very narrow and surprisingly, the rather small piece of wood shows 43 rings. If this actually are year rings, the gigantic trunk must be incredibly old. Fascinated, Mil decides that she will have to convince Koshi to get a complete slice of this tree for further study. She adds a few more lines to her report and starts another query in the ships library, sure she made a really important observation here.

Carlos enters the lab silently and hands her a cup of steaming coffee, sitting down at a vacant station. Mil takes the coffee grateful, smiling at the technician and leans back in her chair to relax her neck musculature. Her first series of analysis are finished. She couldn't find any harmful substances, neither in the filters of the mask nor in the plant or soil samples. The latter ones she scraped from Koshis heavily soiled suit.

The preliminary results seem actually too good to be true: a planet with breathable atmosphere, an earth-like vegetation, without any poisonous substances or other obstacles to make a settlement project dangerous or otherwise unprofitable. Spacecorp will be happy to start colonisation immediately. The sobering thought of their employer's strategies causes Mil to sigh. Carlos throws her a questioning glance.

"I just imagined what Spacecorp is going to do to this beautiful planet."

The technician's facial expression gives away his sinister thoughts. Besides, he never made a secret of his disdain for their employer.

"Spacecorp follows strictly commercial goals. They will exploit anything exploitable on this planet and destroy the rest as fast as possible to gain room for human settlements and factories."

He mournfully watches the main screen, showing the far distant edge of the forest. Then he adds one of his archaic sayings, his voice almost inaudible. Mil feels a cold shiver running down her spine.

"You might have sold your soul to the devil, Mil."