Hidden Empire - Kevin J. Anderson [14]
Estarra had already explored every nearby path, amazed by the world around her. The spunky girl's actions occasionally earned her frowns from her older sister Sarein, who was enamored of the world of business, politics, and commerce. Estarra didn't want to grow up quite so quickly as her sister, though.
Reynald, her eldest brother, was already twenty-five and well on his way to becoming the next Father of Theroc. Handsome and patient, Reynald studied politics and leadership; by tradition, he had always known he would become the next spokesman for the forest world. In preparation for assuming his impending mantle, Reynald had recently departed on an exciting peregrination to distant and exotic worlds, meeting the major planetary leaders, both human and Ildiran, before his duties chained him to Theroc.
Estarra's parents had never gone to the Ildirans' fabulous capital city of Mijistra under the Seven Suns, though their daughter Sarein—four years younger than Reynald—had spent several years being schooled on Earth and forging alliances with the Hansa.
Estarra's brother Beneto had always been destined to "take the green" and become a priest of the worldforest. She looked forward to his return from Oncier, where he had watched the creation of the new sun.
Father Idriss and Mother Alexa had indulged her, perhaps too much, letting her find her own interests and get into all kinds of trouble. Her little sister Celli, the baby of the family, preferred to spend time with her incessantly chattering friends. Estarra was much more independent.
She ducked beneath sweet-smelling ferns and felt the tingle of wild perfume against her bronze skin. Estarra's hair was bunched in a chaos of braids and twists. She preferred this unfashionable style because it left few loose strands to catch on branches and twigs.
She trotted along, memorizing the way back home to the towering fungus-reef city where she lived. Estarra stood under the skyscraper-tall worldtrees, scaly-barked plants that throbbed with energy, stretching toward the sky as if planted in some giant's garden. Through cracks of the overlapping bark armor, treeling sprouts protruded like loose hairs.
The worldtree roots, trunks, and rudimentary mind were all connected. The feathery fronds reached hundreds of feet high, drooping to form an umbrellalike awning, each tree touching the next, to make the sky a tapestry of foliage. The fronds waved like eyelashes stroking each other. In addition to the humming insect sounds and calls of wild animals, a constant blanket of white noise settled over the forest, a rustling sound as soothing as a lullaby.
Worldtrees had spread across all the Theron land masses, and now ambitious green priests carried treelings to other planets so that the interlinked forest sentience could grow and learn. They prayed to it, a throbbing "earth spirit" in a literal sense, and helped the forest sentience grow stronger.
Long ago—183 years—an Ildiran Solar Navy patrol had encountered Earth's first slow-moving generation ship, the Caillié, and brought it to this untouched planet. All eleven of the old generation ships had been named for famous explorers. The Caillié had taken its designation from René Caillié, a French explorer of darkest Africa, who had disguised himself as a native in order to enter the mysterious continent. He had become the first white man to look upon the fabled city of Timbuktu.
Burton, Peary, Marco Polo, Balboa, Kanaka...those generation-ship names had an exotic resonance for Estarra, but even tales of Earth's uncivilized days could not match the wonders the widespread colonists had found as they settled other worlds across the Spiral Arm. Clark, Vichy, Amundsen, Abel-Wexler, Stroganov. All of them had found homes with the help