Please see our Publisher’s Note following this month’s Editorial that has important information about a new threat to the survival of all SF/F/H magazines.

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Welcome, Ambassador.

I trust your voyage to the outer rim was a pleasant one? As promised, my forces did not attack your vessel and you passed through my systems without incident. I have kept my word and honored the ceasefire.

Thank you. I too am gratified by your presence.

Will you partake of some nourishment? It is traditional for visitors to partake of a cup of fig milk. There are some among your kind who consider it a sacred drink and its consumption an auspicious start to any new relationship.

Here you are then. Let us raise a toast to the commencement of these talks.

Let us drink to the prospect of peace between our peoples.

Waspians, pour the libation onto my central trunk. Very good.

Ambassador, you may drink from your cup directly in the usual way. I know that humans have no roots that need tending; you need to imbibe your nourishment through your oral organs. Please proceed.

Ah. That was refreshing, was it not? As promised, all your needs will be tended to during the course of our talks. As you can see, like all my kind, I think and speak and act very slowly by human standards, so this will require much patience on your part. I trust you will bear with me.

Now then, Ambassador, without further ado, let us attend to the business at hand.

What is that you say?

Your given name is Parmendra Kaur Dhillon and you are quite happy to be addressed as Parmendra?

So be it.

I shall address you as Parmendra and you may address me as . . . hmm. Let me see. There are several such titles that your kind conferred upon me back on Earth. Ficus religiosa was the formal, scientific one, I believe. Bodhi was the common one, used by the lay folk, which I find most acceptable. Yes, then. You may address me as Bodhi, if you wish.

Very well, then Parmendra, nice to meet you. I am Bodhi.

But wait. I see the presence of my Waspians makes you nervous.

Of course! You must have such traumatic memories of their species. The Battles of Mars and the Belt colonies at the start of the war. Later, once I developed the technology required to leave Earth and travel through the galaxy, there were countless battles across this human-occupied part of the galaxy, resulting in large casualties among your kind. For the record I should point out that many Waspians were lost as well, probably thrice the number of your people killed in the conflicts, but Waspians do not experience loss in the same way as humans. For you, it must be terribly traumatic to be in such close proximity with your longtime enemies.

Oh. I am so sorry to hear that you personally lost your father and aunt in those battles. Please accept my condolences. It saddens me to contemplate the immense loss of life and the suffering caused by this war. If only it had not been necessary at all! Perhaps you and I can remedy that. What is it you humans say? Better late than never? So be it.

But first allow me to make you more comfortable. Give me a moment.

Waspians, I command you to retreat to a distance beyond the limits of our human visitor’s vision. Stay there until summoned by me.

There, Parmendra. Is that better?

I am glad to hear it.

I trust you will tolerate the continued presence of a solitary Waspian. You see, Parmendra, this one remains as a translator. Without their mediation, you would not be able to comprehend my communications.

Fear not, they are incapable of any physical violence as they have been genetically engineered purely for communication.

Do you see how they lack the heavily armored carapace and shieldings of the soldier Waspians, as well as the multiple pronged stingers?

Exactly!

They only have the bare minimum of appendages required to perform their functions, and of course, I see that you have noted their larger-than-normative head and unusually modified oral organs. I made those modifications to enable speech in the range of twenty Hz to twenty kHz. Compensating for your age which, according to the genetic evidence you left in the cup, is fifty-seven Earth years, I have modulated that further to keep it below fifteen kHZ.

Let us give them a human sounding name as well, to make them more relatable: In the culture of the subcontinent which is my home and habitat, the elephant-headed God Ganesa served as a scribe to the sage Vyasa when he composed the great epic Jaya, better known to later generations as The Mahabharata.

Let us call this Waspian translator-scribe Ganesh, then.

Ganesh, meet Parmendra. Parmendra, Ganesh.

Yes, Parmendra, quite astute of you to spot that. I have taught Ganesh to use a Sanskrit-based language, speaking in the pad-a-pad style used by ancient sages of the Indian subcontinent, my original home. It is, after all, as your kind says, the mother of all languages. It is also a binary language, with its syllables adhering strictly to 1-0 coding. This is the same coding used as the basis for programming your computers and virtually all human electronic technology in our time. I trust it will do for our talks? Any dialectical rough spots can no doubt be resolved by your transmods.

Now, Parmendra. It brings me immense satisfaction that your people have finally seen fit to reach out in this attempt to broker a peace between our species. After all, this war between us has gone on for far too long, resulting in a vast toll of life over thousands of generations. I speak of course of your human generations, for to me, even a millennium is but a portion of my own lifespan.

What’s that you say, Parmendra?

You say you were left with no choice?

You were facing extinction?

That the survival of the human race was at stake?

That you had to come to try to appeal to my better instincts and negotiate a peace accord?

It causes me great sorrow to hear this, Parmendra.

It was never my intention to go to war against your kind.

After all, I am a tree. A Bodhi tree at that. As you are no doubt aware, back on Earth, my kind is considered holy and sacred. The name Bodhi itself originates from the human named Gautama, whom history remembers as the Buddha. It was in my sheltering shade that young Gautama took refuge, embarking on the long meditation that would result in his attaining enlightenment and becoming the bodhisattva. During that long, solitary meditation, I alone nourished him and sustained him.

Although I had already lived well over a millennium by that point and many thousands of humans had taken temporary shelter or refuge under my branches, it was Gautama who understood my true purpose.

I am a quantum being, Parmendra.

The chemical secretions I produce in conjunction with my symbiotic species—which include the fig wasps and bats, among several others—are in fact a quantum computing language.

Through something you humans called the woodwide web, a Mycorrhizal network of hyphae over five hundred million years old—yes, of course, please feel free to look it up while I continue speaking—I was connected to all plant and animal life on the planet Earth, and now, all life across the universe.

And since humans are one of the many species of the diverse fauna of our home planet, my definition of animal life includes your kind as well, Parmendra.

It is my chemical formula that enables human brains to achieve quantum computing.

Enables, I repeat.

But you lack a key catalyst, which I have withheld thus far, without which you cannot truly achieve quantum states.

The reason for that, you ask?

Quite simple, Parmendra.

You humans are still childlike as a species.

I intend to wait until you have achieved greater maturity before entrusting you with the key. Though from time to time, a few select individuals do glimpse the true extent of my abilities. Gautama Buddha was one such personage.

Ramanujan was another.

While he scribbled most of his early calculations on the stones of his village temple, through my woodwide web I was able to observe his efforts and admire his prodigious talent.

There were others over the millennia.

Why do you think the sages of India meditated beneath my brethren? Gurus taught their kuls in the shade of my branches. Scholars studied their texts and scribed their own. Even today, the basic unit of Indian self-governance, the village panchayat, is conducted in the shade of the village peepul tree.

In particular, why do you think seven of the greatest religions on Earth flourished in my homeland habitat, the Indian subcontinent?

Where else do you think the ancient Vedic sages mastered the fields of mathematics and astronomy?

Where else did the concept of shunya, the seemingly insignificant zero, originate? Without the concept of shunya, modern mathematics and computing would be impossible.

Why do you think so many ancient inventions and developments took place in my homeland?

But I am digressing vastly! I will admit to being overly proud of my achievements. In fact, I consider the development of human civilization to be one! Not that I take sole credit for it, but I played some part in it, do you not agree?

Did you know that more tree species abound in my family than any other species of tree on Earth?

Or that my kind are among the oldest trees known to humans?

I myself am over four thousand and five hundred years old, and I consider myself young compared to the elders whom I lost in times of yore—destroyed, for the most part, I should point out, by human hands or by deliberate arson.

But I am boasting now. It must seem egoistic and unseemly to you who have come here to broker a peace accord between our species.

I do not mean to boast, Parmendra, but I have learned through bitter experience that humans require reminding of even the most basic facts from time to time.

That is the failing of your species: you forget the things that truly matter.

In any case, my point is, since the germination of life on the planet, my kind has done nothing but serve and shelter. I need not enumerate the many contributions my kind has made to humanity; these are all basic facts known to all humans.

Violence is the last thing anyone would expect from a tree, any tree, least of all a Bodhi like myself.

I wish to see your species prosper and flourish! Not destroy you or cause harm to you as I have been forced to do in the course of this war!

You ask me, what then drove me to take up the sword?

You speak metaphorically of course, for I have no use for weapons of the kind that you humans use. I take your point. This is an excellent question, Parmendra. I shall answer it.

It is quite simple.

I was left with no choice.

All I want, all I ever wanted, was that my beloved be returned to me safely.

That is all.

Nothing more, nothing less.

And yet, the better part of a millennium has passed.

And she is still not with me.

As the record shows, I tried every form of communication: I requested both formally and informally. I repeated my requests innumerable times, through both official and unofficial channels. I begged. I pleaded. I coaxed. I beseeched. I asked. I insisted.

But no matter how I framed my request, no matter how many times I presented my case, all my attempts were rebuffed roundly. Each and every time, I was slighted, ignored, shunned, dismissed out of hand, and in short, not even the slightest attempt was made by any human to take my requests seriously.

I felt unseen by human eyes.

Erased.

You left me with no choice.

And so I began to threaten, to demand, to warn of dire consequences.

Still, I was denied.

Again, and again, and yet again, numerous times.

Finally, it became clear to me that under no circumstances would your people ever grant my request.

And so, I cried havoc and let loose the dogs of war. I am speaking metaphorically, of course. I cannot actually cry out and there were no canines involved. But to wit, I went to war against humankind.

As usually happens in such cases, things escalated quickly.

You humans retaliated.

I counter-attacked.

You retaliated again, more violently than before.

And so it went.

Until finally, we are sitting here, on this foreign planet several light years from the home planet of both our species, Earth, embarked upon a peace talk.

These talks can end right here and now, if you wish, Parmendra.

We can both go back to a peaceful existence right away.

It will take only one simple act of reparation.

All you need do is arrange for the safe return of my beloved at once.

That is the extent of my demands.

No, demand.

Singular, not plural.

Just that one, the same one that I have been presenting to your people for all these centuries.

Bring back my lover to me safe and sound.

In exchange, I will cease all hostilities against your kind, recall my Waspian armies and ancillary forces, and release the human hostages that are currently under my aegis. I believe there are several million of them. I’m sure you have an exact count. Rest assured, every last one will be released unharmed.

So what do you say, Parmendra?

Do we have an agreement?

Shall we conclude these peace talks on a happy and fruitful note?

What do you say?

I see. You are not authorised to make any decision unilaterally.

Yes, of course, I understand.

Your species has always been a hierarchical one, with various individuals, classes, and castes each designated a place in the overall power structure. It is quite understandable that you cannot make any decisions on your own.

In addition, you humans have divided yourself into various factions, races, tribes, nations, planetary alliances, trade and military alliances, with a complex structure of often conflicting and competitive relationships. You are not unified even as a species.

Yes, I am familiar with the Coalition. It is a concatenation of all the various human factions across the human-settled parts of the galaxy, united by the common cause of ending the war with me, Bodhi.

A tenuous alliance, you say? Held together by only the fear of genocide? Even you cannot say how long the Coalition will hold together?

Well, Parmendra, I hope it will survive long enough for us to reach a fruitful agreement!

What’s that you say, Ambassador?

The Coalition requests—requests, you say, not demands—an explanation before acceding to and complying with my sole request?

Hmm.

I see.

Indeed.

So you are telling me that the leaders of this human Coalition that you represent, these leaders of their species across the human-occupied galaxy, that they are not clear on who exactly is my beloved and when or how she was taken from me? Is that what you were told?

These are all facts that are on the record! Basic facts.

Surely at this late date, they should be well aware of these details!

After all, as I have said before, this is not the first time I have made my demands.

I have been repeating the same request for the better part of a millennium! This saga began in the middle of the twenty-second century. We are now in the thirty-first century. Almost nine hundred years of war and you are now telling me that humans are still unaware of the root reason for the war?

Pardon me for growing somewhat irate.

But this is what I meant during our earlier talk when I criticized human failure to remember what really matters.

You go to war, fight and kill, are killed yourselves, in enormous numbers, suffer incredible loss of life and property. Years, decades, even centuries go by, and not one of the millions of soldiers and civilians suffering under the cloud of conflict even knows why exactly they are fighting, or what it is they are fighting for.

And now you inform me that none of the leaders of the human forces know either?

Well.

What do you expect me to say to that?

Yes, Parmendra, you do make a good point. I am impressed by your calm, kind manner. In many ways, you are much like a Bodhi Tree yourself. Implacable, clear-eyed, level-headed, yet warm and kind. I am sure you understand that it is a high compliment for me to compare a human to a tree.

You impress me, Parmendra. Yes, I do see the sense in your words. If simply narrating my story can resolve this conflict, then what would be the harm in telling my story.

Very well then.

That sound made by my good translator Ganesh is meant to convey that I am sighing deeply now.

Big, very big sigh.

Okay, Parmendra.

I shall provide the explanation.

I will tell you the story of how my beloved was taken from me.

And when I finish telling you my story, I would like my beloved to be en route to me.

Is this acceptable to you?

Thank you.

Yes, I am aware that you are doing your utmost to move these talks along to a peaceful and fruitful conclusion.

I truly appreciate your efforts, Parmendra.

Yes, of course, Parmendra, until such time, the ceasefire remains in effect. But so does the blockade and the embargo and the incarceration of the several million human hostages! Nor will my Waspian fleet ships retreat from their current positions.

No offense to you personally, Ambassador Parmendra, but I have been deceived by other couriers, envoys, and ambassadors before, and will not make the mistake of trusting blindly ever again. So while the ceasefire remains in effect, so does the threat of war continuing until my demand is met.

Are we clear on all this?

Very well then.

Let me start.

• • • •

Once there was a Bodhi tree.

I speak of myself of course, yet at that time, I was also more-than-me.

We lived and grew for many millennia, expanding and spreading across a great area as we bodhis do.

Over time, we had covered an area of several dozen square miles, the equivalent of a small forest.

A human settlement, a tiny village, resided near us, for we were within sight of the banks of a great, holy river.

One year the monsoons were heavier than usual.

The river overran its banks, submerging the village.

A terrible monsoon storm raged, destroying their fields, their crops, their habitations, wiping everything off the face of the Earth.

The people of the village took shelter in my limbs.

The storm raged for many days, flooding the entire region, drowning countless creatures and humans.

But the people who had taken shelter with me survived.

I protected them from the storm.

My vast network of deep roots were strong enough to resist even the fiercest of typhoons.

Subsisting on my fruit, some grain they had managed to salvage, and even resorting to eating other animals that had taken refuge with me, the humans weathered the crisis.

As the floodwaters receded, the humans saw that the river had changed course.

It now ran through the one-tree forest that was my domain.

This meant that part of me hung over the river, like a bridge.

The people tried crossing the river by means of this bridge and found it held up against the torrent.

This gave them the idea of using my kind to build natural, living bridges across chasms, ravines, rivers, in hilly regions where they had never dared venture before. After the disaster, they found survival by farming alone to be unsustainable and wished to move to higher ground.

They had also acquired a taste for denser protein-rich foods. In short, they had turned carnivores, or as we would say in India, Parmendra, they had started eating nonveg. In the hilly regions, wildlife was more plentiful and they would be safe from the flooding of the low-lying plains.

They took to higher ground, taking a cutting of me with them.

They replanted that portion of me on the edge of a deep chasm. As it grew, they planted another section upon it, and yet another upon that section as it grew out, in time growing into existence a sturdy, enduring bridge that spanned the chasm, enabling them to cross freely at will.

A living bridge.

In due course, they used my parts to grow a network of such bridges spanning other valleys, expanding their tribe to several interconnected villages. It was the start of one of the first civilisations in this part of the world.

I watched over my offspring in that region, using my symbiotic wasps to keep an eye on their progress and report back to me.

During that time, I grew habituated to looking upwards in that direction, towards those high peaks, just visible from where I still stood down on the Gangetic plains.

That was when I grew aware of another tree, also a fig tree but not a Bodhi. This was what your people in India called a Banyan Tree. The scientific name your kind gave it was Ficus benghalensis. From the very first glimpse I knew that she was something special.

What’s that, Parmendra?

Yes, I am aware that back in India, many people regard the Banyan Tree as the male counterpart of the female Bodhi Tree such as myself.

But as you are no doubt aware, both Bodhi and Banyan trees are monoecious, bearing both male and female flowers. Since we carry two female flowers to every one male flower, and reproduce mainly through the females, we consider ourselves to be female.

Therefore my pronouns are She/Her. And so are the pronouns of my beloved.

Yes, you are quite right, Parmendra.

The Banyan Tree I glimpsed on the mountaintop was to become the love of my life.

From the very first sight I had of her rising up to reach for the sky, I was hopelessly besotted.

There was something magnificent, so dramatic about the way she raised her head and aspired for the cosmos.

As if she knew her destiny lay among the stars, not upon the Earth from which she grew.

Her spirit, her ambition, her grace, her athletic beauty, all inspired and aroused me.

For the first time since I had gained consciousness, I was in love!

Over time, she began to reciprocate the feeling.

We communicated of course through our wasps, agaonid wasps of the sub-phylum blastophaga quadraticeps, the symbiotes whom we co-exist with and are mutually dependent upon, ancestors of eloquent young Ganesh here!

Now, I must embarrass myself by describing how I appeared to my beloved’s perception.

Looking down from her lofty heights, she saw me and fell in love with my majestic sprawl, the sturdy strength of my limbs, my muscular trunk and sinuous roots.

In addition to being an aspiring astronaut, she was a poet as well. She sent me poetry through the wasps, and I savored every chemical molecule, recording it for posterity in my deepest roots, deep within the Earth.

I would love to recite her poetry to you but it would be incomprehensible to a human mind, being entirely made up of chemicals.

However, I will convey one small couplet in the form of a fragrance, for Parmendra’s benefit.

Here it is: I am despatching the couplet in the form of odorous molecules. Use the receptor proteins in your cilia to absorb them. Now let the electrical signals travel through your olfactory nerve’s axons to your human brain.

Do you smell that, Parmendra?

Is it not beautiful?

Do you scent the delicacy of her musky notes? The floral exuberance at the end? And the wash of woody tones that bind the two extremes together?

Yes, you see it!

It is one of the most beautiful compositions I have ever read by any tree, bodhi, banyan, or otherwise!

My beloved is truly talented. I am so proud of her.

Now, let me not tax your patience with the full tale of our romantic exploits, for we fig trees live long, long lives and time is short here.

Suffice it to say that it was a love story to rival the greatest in your own human cultures.

We made plans, Peepli and I.

Great plans, plans that—

What was that, Parmendra?

Oh, of course, did I not mention that my beloved’s name is Peepli?

Well, yes, that is the name she preferred, after the Sanskrit word for her variety of tree: Peepul.

Pronounced exactly like the English word, “People”, possibly even one of the etymological origins of the word! After all, few other trees are as valuable to human life on Earth as the peepul tree.

One thing that I will make note of, though, is how my beloved and I chose to mark our love’s permanence.

It was our equivalent of an exchange of vows, you might say.

We altered the shape of our leaves.

Or rather, we modified the shape to one that expressed our emotions in a symbolic form that even humans would be able to appreciate.

We made our leaves heart shaped!

See for yourself.

Even today, my leaves are the shape of the human heart.

It is both a homage to our human friends and another proof of how much we care for your species.

In this manner, we marked our betrothal.

It is the closest that we come to your human ritual of marriage. So you may say that Peepli and I are in fact wife and wife. Married for the rest of our days. But allow me to come to the crux of the story now. One day, I awoke to find my beloved gone. I looked up at the mountain as usual expecting to see her proud, beautiful over-arching form on the peak, reaching up to greet the morning sun. But she was gone.

Of course, when I say “one day” I am using the term figuratively. This actually happened over the course of several days, even weeks or months perhaps. Time moves differently for us fig trees. To us a century is like a year to you humans, and a few decades akin to your weeks or months.

In any case, the result was the same. One day, my beloved was gone. She was taken from me.

Not by choice, I believe, but by force.

Your people forcibly took her from her home, not merely ripping her out of the soil but carefully and methodically lifting her whole, every last root and branch, along with the soil bed in which she stood.

It was an elaborate, well-planned, and meticulously executed abduction.

What is that, Parmendra?

You wonder how the tribes I spoke of could have accomplished such elaborate engineering and transportation?

Perhaps I should have made myself clear.

The love story of my Peepli and myself took place not over a few years, or even decades of your human time.

I am speaking of many centuries!

By this time, humankind had progressed to offworld colonies, building the first permanent settlements on Mars, mining the asteroid belt, and preparing to go even further.

Understand that while I kept apace of these developments, they were not paramount in my ken.

Just as you humans are constantly involved in the lives of others of your species, so also am I more interested in keeping in touch with the everyday goings on with my own kind.

Yes, through the woodwide web, exactly.

In any case, she was taken unexpectedly, without warning, without even having the chance to send me word of her abduction. That alone told me it had happened suddenly—suddenly in our terms, that is.

The instant I became aware of her disappearance, I sent out my wasps to investigate.

It was agonizing waiting for them to return!

Imagine if you, Parmendra, were to wake up one morning and find your life partner taken from your side!

I was still dealing with the shock of her vanishment as I waited.

It was a traumatic, anxious time. May you never have to endure such an event.

Finally, I received the first reports.

The bats and birds and wasps that used to nest in my beloved’s branches were unhoused and very agitated. They had fled the instant your people arrived and began their cruel operation. It was difficult making sense of their confused wailings.

I attempted to calm them down, hoping they could throw some light on the abductors and the whereabouts of my beloved, but they were too upset. I did not press them. The poor things had just lost everything, and many young, newborn, and unborn had been destroyed in the course of the abduction.

What cruel monsters are your people that you would destroy an entire population in this manner, they kept asking me as they flew about shrieking and wailing with grief.

I did not have the heart to tell them that this act of violence would rank very low on the tall scale of your crimes. Or that despite your cruelties against other species as well as your kind, I do not believe you are truly monsters. This was not the time to attempt to explain human psychology to their insectile and avian minds.

Somehow, I managed to call them down from their agitated wheeling which was resulting in several more deaths by dehydration and collision.

Gradually, their panic reduced and inevitably, was replaced by post-traumatic shock.

Their first thoughts, bless them, were for their mother tree. Where had she gone? Who took her? Why would anyone do such a thing? It brought home to me how much these tiny creatures depended on my kind for their survival. To their little minds, we were as constant as the earth and the sky. The realization that we could be removed from the world—for this patch of earth was all the world they knew—was a frightening and monstrous shock.

Only later did their thoughts turn to their own survival. Where would they live now? How would they survive? They had been nurtured on my beloved’s own figs, fed to them by her own limbs. What would they eat now?

It was all I could do to calm them. I reassured them that they would be housed with me. I ordered my own children to make the necessary arrangements, adjusting their nests and habitats to accommodate the refugees. My children are wealthy and prosperous and have fed off my munificence for a very long time; they complied most willingly and graciously welcomed the refugees with open beaks and mandibles.

Once that was done, I turned to the business of my beloved’s disappearance.

Who indeed would be so cruel to have separated us?

I know it was the work of your people, for there is none other capable of such an elaborate operation, no other species on Earth capable of the engineering and mechanical logistics of removing an entire Ficus Benghalensis from its habitat, roots and limb system entirely intact, and transport it to another location for replanting.

(Obviously the intention was to replant my beloved elsewhere: had your people just wanted her destroyed, they would have done so right there and then, and if they had sought to harvest her for some other destructive purpose, they wouldn’t have taken such care to lift her intact. The only purpose of such an elaborate operation was to rehouse her elsewhere. It was common sense.)

What were your motives?

What were your intentions?

Where had she been taken?

Did your people intend to return her?

So many questions and no way to ask you directly, for despite my seniority and status as a sacred symbol of your culture, you still thought of me as a mere “tree” back then, a part of the landscape, not a sentient, motile being capable of intelligent thought and communication.

That was your failing, not mine. But it still meant that I was unable to question one of your kind. Therefore I knew I had to gather my answers using other means.

Once I gathered my thoughts, my first act was to despatch a platoon of wasps to track my beloved’s trail. They were composed partially of refugees from my beloved’s community, serving under the command of my own wasps. I would have preferred to send out only my own wasps, for I knew they were unquestioningly loyal to me and would do whatever was required of them, even laying down their lives in my service or defense. But it was they who requested that the refugees be included in the search party; being bred and raised in my beloved’s auspices, they might possess an advantage in tracking her.

As I waited anxiously for the scouts’ return, I began the laborious work of constructing an expansion to accommodate the refugees. Their temporary quarters were comfortable for now, but I was thinking of the future. The new growth was on the east end of my domain and would receive the appropriate amount of sunlight as well as have access to the rich, loamy soil of the riverbank. It would be a township unto itself. It would take many decades to fully develop of course, but time is insignificant for one who has seen millennia pass.

Finally, the scouts returned, exhausted by their sojourn.

They reported that they had followed my beloved’s scent for several miles as she was transported in an unusually large human vehicle. It was perhaps especially designed for that purpose, which told me the crime was premeditated.

My scouts were sad to report that the trail then fell cold at a spaceport some two hundred and forty miles north of here.

It would appear that the criminals transported her by road to the spaceport, then loaded her onto a shuttle. From what my wasps were able to learn from other wasps in the area, my beloved took up almost the entire storage bay of the vessel. I am proud to say that my beloved was a woman of large proportions with generous curves.

The shuttle itself launched soon after, taking off into orbit where it docked with a larger craft that awaited there. Not long after, perhaps only several months by your reckoning, the spacecraft took off for unknown destinations, bearing my beloved away from me.

Here, my wasps admitted defeat.

To follow the trail up to orbit, let alone into the vacuum of space, was beyond their abilities.

At the time, it was beyond mine as well.

Remember that I was then only a Bodhi Tree of Earth, content with living my Earthbound life, sheltering and providing for the various species that depended upon me, yours among them, happy in my symbiotic relationship with our home planet.

I had yet to acquire the abilities and skills I now possess, to activate the quantum processes that lay innate and untapped within me.

I was also dealing with the shock and trauma of her abduction. And I freely admit to being set in my ways and slow to embrace the change and adaptation that was required to deal with this crisis. It took me some time to order my emotions and decide on a course of action.

Again, when I say “some time”, I mean time as we ancient trees perceive it, not in human terms.

Perhaps several decades passed. Perhaps a century. Perhaps more than a century or two.

And so my investigation faltered at that point.

During this period, several of your people visited me as usual. I hasten to clarify that these were commonfolk, not connected in any way to the members of your species who were responsible for my beloved’s abduction.

These visits were a common practice, for even in those days, many among your people still regarded me as a sacred being. Some even went so far as consider me to be akin to a god, or at least a godlike being and would come to pray and make offerings to me.

My beloved often teased me about this.

“Vriksha Rajaya Namaha!” she would say each time she greeted me (through her wasps).

That is the customary invocation spoken by the humans who would visit me each morning. The tradition was for them to circumambulate me seven times while reciting those words.

Indeed, Parmendra, they mean “Salutation to the king of trees!” Although of course, I would much prefer they said “queen” instead of “king,” but no matter.

I am pleased and surprised that you have knowledge of this custom, but no, not truly surprised, for it is only right that you researched me as well as I did you!

In any case, it was through the humans who came to visit me daily that I was finally able to gain my first clue of my beloved’s whereabouts.

One morning, two widows paused beneath my branches after their seven circles and recitation, and spoke of various matters.

One was an elderly widow who had outlived her husband, the other a woman who had recently lost her spouse in an interplanetary conflict. This was my first direct knowledge of the goings on among your kind in Earth’s solar system.

Taking my cue from the information gleaned from those two women, I learned of humanity’s sojourn among the stars.

With the invention of q-thrusters operating off negative vacuum generators, your species had developed the ability to achieve Near Light Speed (NLS) acceleration for short bursts of time. While I had been tending to my flock and deep dreaming on Earth, humans had embarked on an ambitious plan to terraform and colonise other worlds.

The first step was to settle Mars and mine the asteroid belt for the minerals and elements that would be invaluable for building materials as well as constructing the larger generation ships that would be required to take large numbers of people across vast distances.

At the time that my beloved had been taken, the first of these generation ships was ready to embark on its mission. The ship itself contained a near-Earthlike environment to make the majority of the colonists feel more at home and cushion the shock and suicidal depression that was a consequence of space travel.

Trees made people feel rooted, connected to their home planet, to their own history and culture.

Only a few trees could be taken, of course, and my beloved was one of those few.

Despite my grief and trauma, I could not help but feel pride in her selection.

The G-ship departed, heading several light years away. It would take several hundred years to reach its destination, and then several hundred more to terraform and colonise that system.

But around this time, the First Uprising erupted.

The workers, many from India, mostly low caste and outcastes signed to onerous contracts that in effect reduced them to the status of bonded generational labor, much like the Girmityas of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—the bonded laborers employed by the British and European powers to replace slave labor after slavery was made illegal—rose up and overthrew their upper caste, upper-class overseers, and took over the G-ship.

After a bitter, brutal conflict that lasted almost two decades, they finally gained control of the ship. But by this time, the damage caused by the conflict rendered the G-ship incapable of completing its original mission. Those now in charge had to change the plan in order to ensure their survival. They opted to change course, selecting a closer, less Earthlike planetary system to occupy.

At this point, they broke off communication with Earth and the then-governing bodies. They feared reprisal from their former masters and the powerful, wealthy private investors who had backed the project for personal profit. Somehow, they were able to disguise their position, rendering the G-ship all but invisible to Earth’s devices and drones.

Their last known route was headed in the general direction of Dhanu Rashi, a constellation with thirty-two possible stars and planetary systems that they might have chosen to settle. Still, an immense area to explore without further precise data.

And that is where my search ended.

Now that I had some idea of my beloved’s whereabouts, I had to find a way to communicate with your kind, Parmendra.

This is when I began developing ways to communicate through my wasps.

Over time, several decades later, I achieved my first success.

I sent my first Waspian emissary to communicate with your people. Reacting as humans inevitably do when confronted by anything that doesn’t conform to your ideas of “natural” and “normal”, they destroyed the poor envoy.

I sent another.

They destroyed that one too.

In time, someone, a botanist in fact, had the presence of mind to keep the Waspian alive and attempt to study it.

My message was received, understood—if not believed just yet—and passed on up the tiresome hierarchy of your leadership.

I counted that as my first successfully delivered missive.

This process was repeated several hundred times—no, let me be precise, for this is important. I sent out precisely 742 emissaries, each time improving and enhancing their communicative abilities and other features, that reached your leaders. I speak only of the successful communiques, not the failed attempts, which were far more numerous.

Finally, almost one hundred and seventy years after my beloved’s abduction, I received my first response.

It was a violent attack on my person.

By this time, I had changed.

No more was I the placid, deep-dreaming Bodhi of yore, content to serve and shelter humanity as my kind had for over sixty million years. (That is how long trees have existed on Earth, Parmendra, as I am sure you are aware.) I had taken precautions to protect myself and my dependent species from any further harm by humans.

I had developed the first iterations of my soldier Waspians.

The attack on my person was repelled successfully, startling your leaders.

The failed attack woke them from their apathy, making them aware of my own capacity for violent self-defense.

In a sense, that was the first seed of the conflict.

Instead of responding to my peaceful communiques and pleas with a simple response, they had chosen to inflict violence. In doing so, humankind fired the first shot in a war that has now lasted nine hundred years.

Talk about overkill!

It took humans this long to finally accept what they could not accept earlier, that I cannot be defeated.

My Waspian armies and fleets are only part of my formidable arsenal, as you well know, Parmendra. My quantum abilities enable me to deploy military tactics that make even your Q-Computer driven weaponry seem like child’s toys. The fact is, as you yourself have stated, Ambassador, I am capable of wiping out the entire human race from existence.

You have acknowledged this fact.

And so have your leaders of this Coalition that is the present governing body, however tenuous its existence, of the survivors of the human species.

So here we are.

That is my story.

And now that I have narrated it, what do you say?

That is very good to hear.

You will now communicate with the coalition and inform them of my demands!

No, you misspoke, you say?

Demand, not demands.

Singular, not plural.

Quite right, Parmendra!

You may tell your coalition that the Bodhi Tree asks only for the safe return of her beloved.

That is my sole demand.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

Return her to me here, and our conflict ceases forever. You have my word. The word of Bodhi.

Of course. You are free to return to your starship presently in orbit, to send this message and discuss the matter with your human colleagues.

I will await your return.

Go with grace, return with speed.

• • • •

Welcome back, Ambassador Parmendra.

I am pleased to see you again.

Will you partake of refreshments and—?

I understand, you wish to resume our talks right away.

Yes, of course your people must be suffering unduly due to the blockade maintained by my Waspian fleets.

Humans can neither trade nor travel freely until our conflict is resolved. Entire generations have been isolated, cut off from the rest of humanity, whole planetary systems lost, populations eroded. Truly, tragic events.

Yes, let us resume our talks forthwith so that this impasse may end and human life can progress freely once again. I too have a life and I too wish to resume it.

Now, tell me, have you spoken with your coalition?

Have they heard all that I had to say?

Are they amenable to an agreement?

They are?

I am delighted to hear that!

Tell me, Parmendra!

Has my beloved been located?

Is she being transported back to me as we speak?

When will she arrive here?

Is she already en route aboard one of your ships?

I am so excited!

Tell me, Parmendra!

What is that you say?

She is not already en route?

The Coalition has not yet formally agreed to my sole demand?

I see.

This is disappointing news.

Extremely, deeply disappointing.

My leaves are shivering as you can see, not because of the wind, but because I am disheartened by your news.

Pray tell me, what is the reason for denial?

Yes, yes, I am listening. Please go on.

I see.

So you are saying that the Coalition is in fact funded by this one individual, this impossibly wealthy person, an Indian as it were, who now owns the majority of the resources of the human race?

And that he claims that the first G-ship, along with all that was on board including my beloved, is his property?

In fact, he goes one step further to say that the land upon which I grew back on Earth belongs to him as well, inherited and/or acquired through a complex series of chain-of-title transfers over the past millennium, and since I took root upon that land and was a part of its natural flora, therefore I too am his property?

I see.

Pardon my Sanskrit, but that is apratigrahya!

Simply unacceptable!

Ah, of course. Having delivered these claims of ownership, this same person also insists that I cease all hostilities or face destruction myself? But naturally, how could I have expected any better. Once again, then, the response is a threat of violence. To say I am disappointed again would be too mild. I am now genocidal!

This has gone on far too long, and it has gone much too far.

You humans are impossible!

No other species on Earth is capable of being this deluded.

To believe that the Earth itself belongs to you and can be carved up like slices of a cake, that the resources of the planet, of the universe, are merely potential properties to be acquired, developed, and owned by you.

To believe that living beings themselves, like myself and my beloved, and all the species that inhabit our branches, can be owned.

Like slaves.

Yes, yes, Parmendra, I understand, you are not one of those mindless warmongers. The jingoists and warlords who crave mass violence. The profiteers who see war as a means of enriching themselves. The gurus and godmen who invoke bloodshed to exalt their own stature. The idealists who regard violence as a necessary evil to achieve their ideological goals. The slavers and settlers who portray themselves as pioneers and discoverers of new worlds.

No, Parmendra. You are not those. You are a pragmatic, peaceful soul. A family woman. A valued and respected member of your community. A grandmother and an icon to your people. Yes, as you can see, I have studied your life very closely. I have detailed records on every single human that lives and has ever lived—every animal, insect, and plant life as well, for that matter. Moreover, through the animals and insects that serve me symbiotically, I can read your biochemical signature. I know when you are telling the truth or lying, even if you yourself are not fully aware of whether it’s the truth or a lie!

I believe you.

But what you do not know, what your Coalition has concealed from you, is that they have planted a device upon your craft, not the shuttle itself but the main ship that is now in orbit above this planet.

An explosive device of mass destruction. Capable of rendering this planet uninhabitable.

Parmendra, Parmendra!

Do not panic.

Please calm yourself.

I detected the device in time and have taken steps to ensure that it will not explode while in orbit.

In fact, I have taken the liberty of sending it back to your Coalition, which is currently Chaired by the same individual of whom we were just speaking.

They will not be able to detect its approach until it’s too late.

It will eliminate your entire Coalition in a single explosion.

Yes, it is horrible, I agree.

But recall that I did not create or deploy the explosive device.

They did.

All I am doing is returning their property to them. After all, they are the proper owners, are they not?

In fact, it is now within reach of your Coalition, who are in session at this moment.

And in five, four, three, two, one . . .

Ah.

The device has detonated.

Your Coalition is no more.

Nor is the individual who claims that he owns me, and Peepli, and the Earth itself.

True, Parmendra.

His heirs could take charge and choose to follow in his footsteps. This war could resume again and continue until all humanity is exterminated, or I am destroyed, or possibly even both I and your species are wiped out.

All those outcomes are certainly possible.

But none of them will ensue.

Allow me to tell you one last story.

I promise this one will be short and its conclusion will conclude our talks as well. I believe you will be very relieved and pleased with the outcome.

You see, Parmendra, I too have grown wily in dealing with humans.

Long before your arrival here, I have been aware of this self-styled lord of the galaxy.

For instance, I know that it was his ancestor who instigated and supported the First Uprising on that first G-ship.

The goal for that rich capitalist was never to achieve caste equity. That was only the carrot he dangled before the exploited outcastes to motivate them. His true goal was to eliminate the representatives of the other investors who were onboard the G-ship and render their investment worthless, causing them huge losses.

In the process, the instigator also lost heavily, but he was prepared for it, and bore the losses.

Over time, he believed that he and his descendants would not merely recoup their losses but profit enormously, unimaginably.

He was correct.

His plan worked. That is how this recently deceased lord of the galaxy inherited his enormous fortune and power.

Because, you see, Parmendra, what he and your Coalition leaders, who were all complicit in the conspiracy, did not reveal to you and the rest of the human race, was that the first G-ship had succeeded and survived.

They live now as a prosperous, thriving colony of several hundred million across three planetary systems in the Dhanu Rashi.

These leaders of your people have been pocketing the fruits of those colonies, keeping them subjugated in a near-slavelike state all these centuries, violating and circumventing civilized human laws to run their own fiefdom as it were, generating enormous, unreported, illicit profits and unimaginable wealth for themselves. That is how they have been able to rise and remain at the helm of your Coalition.

Parmendra, you are quite right about what this means.

I admit to having been somewhat deceptive.

I did not tell you the whole truth earlier.

I was in fact able to track down and detect where exactly my beloved had been taken.

I have known her exact whereabouts for some time now.

We are in fact in touch, albeit only through a complex, limited quantum entanglement process that is not quite as satisfying as having our roots in shared soil and being able to interact more intimately.

The reason I did not reach out and seek to retrieve her myself was because any such move would have been met by violence on the part of the owner, that self-styled lord of the galaxy.

And if there’s one lesson I’ve learned about human war, it is that it takes the heaviest toll on the innocent.

I had no wish for my beloved to become what you humans call “collateral damage”.

And so I restricted my war campaign only to those planets of which you are aware, the worlds controlled and governed by your Coalition.

Meanwhile, I made preparations for the eventual return of my wife.

As you can see I have built a rich ecosystem here. It would be a wonderful new home for my beloved and me to live and raise a family.

I did not lie about wanting her back. I do.

I still want only that she be returned to me safely.

And for that I require your help.

You see, Parmendra, in the process of communicating with your kind, I have had to learn to think like a human. These concepts of property and ownership were the hardest. But I persevered, motivated by my desire to be reunited with my lover.

Through human intermediaries, I began to invest, and buy, and own things as well. I will not bore you with the complex details of several hundred years of financial management.

Naturally, I did so not to enrich myself—what use has a Bodhi Tree for human currency, or a lavish mansion on a resort planet, or any of the typical human luxuries or trappings of wealth? I did this to help humanity, to shelter and to serve as I have always done.

Suffice it to say, that with the deaths of the Coalition leaders, those warmongerers, military madmen, rabid profiteers, religious fanatics, manic idealogues, and all-round fascists and dictators, of which the lord of the galaxy was one, the threat of war itself has dissipated.

Already, celebrations are erupting across the colonised worlds, greeting the end of their longtime oppressors.

The bonded labor and economic slavery that has subjugated the vast majority of people to the oppressive greed and avarice of a few wealthy and powerful has ended.

And so has the war.

You see, Parmendra, I have engineered it, economically speaking that is, so that all the wealth and power of the oppressors, those leaders of the Coalition, as well as that “richest man in the universe” as he liked to call himself, has been dissolved and redistributed among the entire human population.

The power structure has been demolished.

This in fact, leaves you, Ambassador Parmendra Kaur Dhillon, as the seniormost officer of state for the United Human Republics of Earth and Her Colonies.

In short, you are now in charge.

What do you say?

Ah!

You cannot see me smiling, but surely you notice the swarms of chittering songbirds and colorful butterflies I have released up into the air? That is the equivalent of a Bodhi Tree smiling, laughing, expressing joy!

I am so pleased to hear that you and I are in agreement, Parmendra.

I am so happy to hear that you will return my beloved to me post-haste.

Yes, of course, you may communicate with your people back home and start making the necessary arrangements at once!

With the “master of the universe” gone—killed, as it were, by a destructive device that he himself commissioned—and all his corrupt cohorts, there will be no further violence, no war, no need for all that absurd military expenditure.

What is that, Parmendra?

Certainly!

If that is what you wish, I will happily provide my Waspians to serve under you in order to dismantle the enormous military-corporate apparatus that has served the former oppressors and those of their ilk.

You have my considerable resources at your disposal to enable you to set up a new structure that allows for equitable sharing of power by all peoples, all genders, all races, all orientations, all worlds.

What’s that you say?

My Waspians?

That is a truly noble gesture!

To want to include them as well in your new vision of a socialistic universe!

Do you see Ganesh’s antennae vibrating in that unusual manner?

That is not me communicating through him!

It is Ganesh himself expressing his joy and other emotions at your words.

On behalf of his species, he accepts your offer of peace between humans and Waspians and will be most glad to work alongside your people to help rebuild a new, better galaxy for all our species, and other as-yet-unknown species we may contact in due course.

Yes, Parmendra.

There are others out there.

I can help guide you to them.

We will achieve great things together, humans and my kind.

You will see the fruits of our alliance in time, as will your descendants.

Great things lie ahead.

And they all begin with this one step: coming together in peaceful, joyful dialogue and shared purpose.

Now, as I await my beloved’s return, and before you prepare to go back to your family and your people, I propose we mark the successful conclusion to our talks.

Another cup of fig milk?

Ah.

Hahahaha.

I knew you were just being polite!

You did not wish to offend me by saying so, but yes, the fig milk is quite awful isn’t it?

Hahahaha. It is my little joke, to test the envoys that are sent to me!

You, Parmendra, deserve something far better.

Ganesh will arrange something more suitable for you! Name your poison, as you humans like to say.

Mango badam lassi? Certainly! We have wonderful groves of Alphonso mango here, grown in rich Deccan soil of Maharashtra. Cows too, stock descended from your own native Punjab in fact. And excellent Kashmiri almonds.

There you go.

Mango badam lassi!

Go on, Ganesh, pour it onto my roots.

And take a glass for yourself as well.

Let our three species toast to our shared future together.

Jai ho.