Jhani Trae Zeid

By Steven Lance

 

Jhani Trae Zeid is an Earthling, cis human female, alive during the planet's final few centuries before losing its ability to harbor life. She is an arborist and, at just 35 years old, the world's leading authority on trees. She has spent her post-Doctorate years obtaining seeds from very nearly every tree species on Earth. Her thesis put forth the proposition that such seeds should be gathered and then sown on other worlds thereby creating habitable living conditions for humanity to survive by extending its reach into the cosmos.

As Earth air has become too polluted to breathe without a respiratory aid, much of Jhani's work outdoors demanded she see the world through a respirator face-plate so that she wouldn't become sick. The waters of Earth have also been polluted to the point of becoming life-threatening rather than life-affirming. Depletion of indispensable resources has left the Earth in death throes. As a result, having failed to act for centuries due to a lack of political will against trillionaires and billionaires who wanted more and more profit from ventures that were injurious to the planet, the world governments have agreed in principle to send twenty-four arks containing humans from all racial make-ups to populate the best candidate worlds for continued existence; survival of the species. 

Of course, the governments of the world have spent at least the last decade arguing over how many of each race will be included always with the goal of having more representation than other countries.

But even as the nations of the Earth tussle with finalizing the Human Ark Project, they had agreed that Jhani Trae Zeid should venture forth to visit each world chosen in order to plant the tree seeds she had gathered. In this way, by the time the arks arrived at the chosen worlds, they would have a full complement of trees to create the perfect atmosphere which would also impact water purification. 

And so it is that the specially designed ship Arbor Vita passes between dimensions using worm hole technology to visit the chosen worlds, one by one. Jhani is the only human aboard. A dozen androids help with the various tasks of running the ship and navigating the Multiverse. To Jhani, this is the best of all realities. She is doing the work she trained for in aid of helping humanity persevere. She is alone with her thoughts and inexhaustible library of data to continue to educate herself as she travels through corridors between time. If she has a need to interface with "someone" she will talk to the droids who, to her, seem more human than humans.

But for the most part, Jhani reads and considers and tends to her seed stores to assure proper humidity and temperature to assure they will be viable upon sowing.

So far Jhani has seeded twenty-three worlds. She has done that by way of a combination of methods. On some worlds, and on other worlds in certain locations with specific conditions, she planted seed by hand; the old-fashioned way. On most other worlds and/or locations, the gel spray technique was used which spreads seeds within a gelatinous substance that protects and feeds the seeds dispersed. This is done from the air, from the Scout craft, a smaller vessel than the Worm Hole transit ship. That made sowing seeds so much quicker.

In fact, quite a bit ahead of schedule. As soon as Jhani is done seeding this last world, she will head back along her flight path visiting the worlds she has seeded, one by one to see how they've done. For the dilation of Time when traveling through the interdimensional corridors then popping back out into local Time frames, makes for eons passing while for Jhani Trae Zeid, Time stands still. Averaging a year per planet per seeding, she is only twenty-four years older than when she started. So, she will be able to see what impact her seeding has had as she travels back along the trail of planets seeded until reaching her very first effort. 

As she instructs her droid pilot in the dispersal of the last of his seeds, Jhani thinks how that consortium of intellect, the best minds on planet Earth, will have their expertise checked against hard-core universal reality. Traveling back along her string of seeded planets it will be easy to tell if their predictions proved correct. Hopefully the chosen planets will have taken the seeds and grown enough forests to provide the atmosphere required. By now, twenty Earth Arks, each containing fifty thousand humans, have been launched towards the twenty-four seeded worlds; their trajectories to be tweaked to bring them to the twenty most promising worlds determined by their sophisticated scanning devices; or, should the availability of habitable planets dwindle to only a few already inhabited, trajectories will coincide so that humans will land en masse with a conqueror's gambit; or, with enough numbers to sustain a unilateral claiming of land under the auspices of survival trumping all else. After all, humans need living room.

As the last of the Earth tree seeds are dispersed, Jhani fondly recalls her time in the woods on Earth. Yet, nothing has been more fulfilling than walking the surface of young, unexplored planets with questionable air knowing that what one does will make the world habitable for their fellow humans thereby allowing humankind to evolve, to survive the death trap that Earth has become. Jhani doesn't dwell on the fact that destroying Earth was all due to humanity's inattentiveness to the health of their planet, to the foul ways developed by industries that polluted the air and water and buried garbage until the garbage buried humanity. All in the name of accruing wealth to bludgeon the laws put into place to protect the populace. 

Jhani gives her droid pilot final instructions and retires to her cabin. She soon falls asleep dreaming of twenty worlds that have taken the seeds and produced glorious forests sufficient to sustain human life. Flying high above those fulgent forests verges on exultation. Humankind is saved in spite of itself. During this dream, she hears voices as she walks through the forests. She is surprised that the colonists have already arrived. She looks for those talking but cannot find them. This is when she awakens, summoned by the intracomm. 

"Jhani, we are now arriving at the twenty-third seeded planet. The lander is being prepared."

She rubs the sleep from her eyes and answers. "I'm on my way."

As the landing craft descends from the main ship, Jhani already sees spectacular forests covering at least this hemisphere of the planet. As the landing craft circles the world, Jhani sees non-stop forests broken only by oceans of lifeliquid. 

Jhani finally puts the lander down softly in a midday field of wildflowers at the edge of a dense forest. The main panel instruments show a blend of atmospheric gases perfect for humans. She disembarks accompanied by two droid assistants. Various wildflowers excrete their sweet aromatics which is drawn in by an ecstatic Jhani. The two droids follow the seeder as she enters the forest. The rich evergreen terpenes assail Jhani with an instant cleansing vigor. The breeze waving boughs fan the rich forest aromas inducing a hypnotic placidity of mind.

The returning seeder stops here and there collecting samples of bark from trees and leaves from vegetation. Jhani is in her glory. This world at least is fit and ready for humanity to thrive here.

She momentarily stops and listens, looks to the edge of the clearing as if hearing something, dismisses it as the wind. 

She repeats her walk in lush woods all across the planet. Every forest she samples shows the same results. A perfect world for human habitation. It is in the last forest, just as she has decided she's seen enough and is about to return to the landing craft, she thinks she hears voices. Indistinguishable words, but unmistakable hushed voices. Just like in her dream. But as she looks to where the voices had come from, she hears only breezes whispering through the boughs. 

"Dreams…" she says quietly. She reasons that the years living by herself is starting to play with her mind. She'll just remember that the next time it happens. Now, out loud, to her two droids she says, "Come along," as she leads the way back to the landing craft.

Pretty much the same scenario happens again and again as Jhani Trae Zeid makes her way back along the seeding trail. Every seeded world visited so far has been in spectacular shape. The atmospheres have been better than even the experts had hoped for; no need for acclimation whatsoever. 

Through the worm hole portals between dimensions where there is no time, Jhani travels back along the worlds she planted not growing much older even as the forests are hundreds of thousands of years advanced. Each and every planet shows the same remarkable results. Jhani Trae Zeid has done a tremendous job. Earth's trees are flourishing on other worlds even as their origin world succumbs to global warming with the last forests burning.

With each world Jhani returns to, her reaction is the same. She is filled with bliss as she travels through the pristine forests. Such invigoration with each return visit, she doesn't notice the symptoms. Or rather, she doesn't acknowledge them. If she did, Jhani would know that she is fatally ill. She ignores the warning signs with the help of being so overwhelmed with joy upon entering each forest on each planet. The vocal hallucinations she experiences are more pronounced though still unintelligible. She knows her mind is beginning to go. Too much time alone conversing with droids.

And so it is, that Jhani Trae Zeid approaches the very first world she seeded ages ago, though only forty-eight Earth-years for her. She instructs her droid pilot to maintain orbit while she is away. As she enters the chamber housing the lander, she is greeted by two droids ready to accompany her planetside. Jhani smiles, says "This one is special, guys. I'm going to visit the planet on my own. You stay aboard ship."

The fine gearing makes sizzing noise as the droids look to each other, then back at Jhani, then back at each other.

Jhani chuckles. "Go!" And she shoos them away with fluttering backhands. She climbs up to the lander entrance and hesitates at the top. Just before she steps inside, she scans the entire chamber, waves goodbye to the two droids.

The away team of droids depressurize the chamber before operating the bay door, sliding it aside as the conveyer delivers the landing craft to the opening. The small craft engages its EM propulsion and moves silently up, out, then downward for a rendezvous with the planet; Jhani's first one. 

Through her view plate she sees what looks to be fabulous growth on every continent. But until she can walk among the trees, she'll not know for sure what the situation actually is. 

The droid pilot inquires if it should send down a complement of security personnel seeing as the two assigned had stayed behind. But the comm connection has been closed by Jhani. Such a break in protocol creates cognitive dissonance within the droid. It causes indecision. The security team is not ordered down to the planet. The droid pilot waits for further instructions from command human, Jhani Trae Zeid.

The arborist eagerly engages in scouting out and about. Walking noiselessly upon soft mosses, midst abundant ferns and mushrooms of every imaginable color. Breathing deeply of terpenes from the firs and cedars and hemlocks. The sun dapples through the over-arching canopy of deciduous leaves. The utter silence is soothing after living with the constant hum of the EM powered ship with all its onboard computers and scanners and HVAC system components;

In the fog of living in the moment, Jhani, by rote, collects samples from various trees' bark and plant leaves that look unusual. In a daze of near ecstasy, the arborist is overwhelmed by a sense of being at one with this forest ecosphere. Not thinking to do so, Jhani nevertheless finds herself back at the lander and takes off for the next forest to examine and sample. 

Jhani ignored the voices she heard knowing the colonists haven't landed yet so they must have been more aural hallucinations. She has lost, or will soon lose, her mind if the voices don't start making sense. She discerns not a word. Yet every time she had paused to listen more closely, the voices went silent. Again, and again.

What else can explain it other than it is the end. She has spent too much time alone and now is paying the price; hearing voices that aren't there. In a cloud of awe and wonder her mind wanders until it is lost. Whether the voices are real or not doesn't matter. Jhani is intoxicated with the aromatic offerings from the forests she visits. She samples bark and plant leaves and glides through her work until she returns to the very first spot she had sown seeds. Sequoia seeds. She is astounded at the size of these trees; even taller and girthier than on Earth. She has returned to this spot to live out the last of her life. She builds a crude hut, draws water from a nearby stream, makes a composting toilet. A vegetarian, she has a never-ending supply of food to eat. The voices she hears grows more insistent though she still can't quite make out the words. Definite hallucination. She wonders if she should finally enter this development into the record and send it back to Earth. That is when she gets word that Earth is in total collapse. 24 arks are on their way to the worlds she planted in hopes of making them habitable.  Seeing the fruits of her labor, a lifetime spent with the trees and now assuring their survival on worlds upon which they will deeply set their roots and build community with their others via a mycorrhizal network, fills Jhani with such felicitousness that she thinks if Heaven exists, she has arrived.  

It is on this day of Jhani's death that she finds a new Sequoia tree just beginning to grow from a seed from a tree she had planted all that time ago. This discovery brings a sense of deep relief. Thus, content with the cycle of life being extended, she passes time midst the terpenes and fresh air on a planet that will house the next iteration of human beings.  

And in her final moments, Jhani Trae Zeid finally hears the words being spoken by the voices. She wasn't losing her mind. The trees have been talking to her, thanking her for planting their seeds from Earth so they can live on. It is a conversation that she and they will carry on for a long, long time after her transitioning.

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