I didn’t take a shuttle over. I did the whole ‘risking the commanding officer in the away team like an idiot’ shtick, and Chalice Linejumped me right over to the surface of a crater on the tumbling rock.

Decent atmosphere, ideal living temperature to help it recover, even the humidity wasn’t too low. I caressed the pollen in the atmosphere, too small to see, psi-active, and probably supposed to be infiltrating me. My Vajra snuffed them on contact, of course, as I had no desire to have abruptly psi-enhanced plants bursting out over my body and trying to digest me... or infiltrate my mind and take control, or any of that stuff.

My feet were four inches above the stone, but every step was crunching and sliding across the stone. I skated across it as lightly as air, but rumbling on the stone like a multi-ton tank.

I came to the crack in the ground, and put Soul into my Whiskers of the Wild.

Four Soul was enough to speak with any plants, while five let me speak with anything. Technically I didn’t have to learn languages anymore, but I enjoyed it, as every language was a different style of thought, and opened insights in how to look at the universe. Radial languages that had no forward, back, left or right, only the six cardinal directions, were ideal for teaching navigators, for instance.

I twitched my whiskers and cat-ears, the pulsing around my jaw that had now been transformed into an actually lethal bite attack if I wanted to use it.

“I know you are there. I can crack this rock open and attract all sorts of attention to you. You shouldn’t have left your psi-active pollen floating around pretending to be cerebral parasites; I’m fully aware of the difference, especially after I ate a couple.

“Exude a tendril for communication. I’m not going down into your root nest.”

My voice carried a long way into the rock under the force of my Vajra... and that Cellulocust was going to be shocked that it understood me, despite itself.

I felt the ground twitching as something moved more than a hundred feet down there, beyond my automatic Tremblesense. Something was rippling over the stone, growing with fluid, smooth speed, coming back up almost as cleanly as it had been withdrawn back.

I watched the tendrils and roots flow through the narrow cracks under living direction, wind their way up into the crack in front of me, and erupt out in fibrous tendrils, growing, gathering, merging, and changing with fantastic speed as the ancient plant grew with great speed.

It was a form of a flowery branch, designed to be inoffensive; no thorns, poison, jaws, invasive tendrils, or anything else in evidence. The perfume was probably a mild narcotic, but was just something to add to my arsenal of poison production, not something dangerous.

I watched the complex flowers bloom, smiled at the potentially hypnotic dance they were doing, and shut down two colors of cones in my eyes, turning the bush a pretty flat grey.

No greetings. It was a plant, not a civilization.

“Is this limb a telepathic node?” I asked calmly. “If not, make it so.”

There was a rustle among the leaves as I pulled out Chalice, and she extended to her full length, chiming a quiet tone.

“There is another Cellulocust on the other side of the Rift I am about to open. You will have 170 seconds to communicate with it.”

I cut, and a Rift to Gloomheart, in a room in the Arena of Blood where nobody was currently in residence, opened a slit.

The flowers bent to aim at the Rift, and the whispers of botanical intelligences reverberated over my hair and Vajra.

Yeah, they were pretty sloppy about their telepathy, too, just like most animals. I felt the presence of the tree-mother on the other side reaching back to this distant kinsman, and thoughts and images flowing back and forth quickly.

She definitely remembered the tune droning right here and now, and who had borne the weapon droning it... and how dangerous me and my girls were.

I waited patiently, listening in with some amusement, the trapped tree-mother conveying her rage and anger at animal life, but also noting that I had never made a move against her, and she had lived through multiple arenas using the strategy of partnering up with certain forces that also wanted to live against mutual enemies, or she would be long dead.

The tree-mother was seething with anger, and warned this flower-child repeatedly, but did not tell her to deny me, given the circumstances.

The Rift closed seamlessly as the power maintaining it dissipated, and Reality forced it shut quietly. The flowers, photosensitive enough to serve as eyes, turned to look at me, while leaves vibrated subtly to Chalice’s Song.

“What do you want here?” it asked in a mélange of odors, rippling colors, stalk positions, rustling leaves, and reflective glitters.

“I seek information, nothing more. Give me what I want, and I will go.”

“And if I do not?” was the appropriate rejoinder.

“It concerns the Anti-Life.”

The whole bunch shrank back down, partially withdrawing into the crack. No, no, that wasn’t significant.

“I see you are also aware of them. Wonderful. We are going to be moving against them rather violently. Any information you desire to share that can facilitate their extinction would be appreciated.”

“Appreciated how?” The plant inflated back to normal rather abruptly.

“Favors are easily exchanged. The value of the information is the value of the favor.”

The flowers danced for a moment, as if thinking in some agitation. “The Life-Dark are grim and terrible, foes of all life. To move against them is dangerous.”

“We are aware of that. We are also aware they’ve arranged for the extinction of most life in the galaxy several times, and both the Tekrons and the Xenosyms are theirs, and they are the ones who formed the Compact of the Black.

“I would like to confirm that the Cellulocusts are enemies of the Anti-Life.”

“We are called The Gardeners.” It seemed rather annoyed at the name we’d given it. “We seed, and we harvest; no more, no less.”

“Those you harvest might choose to harvest you. Being a gardener does not necessarily give you the right to harvest, as much as you might like.”

“It is the way of things.” Dismissive. A temporary thing like me could not understand them, doubtless.

“Truth. All things fight to live. How many purges by the Anti-Life have the Gardeners lived through?”

Momentary hesitation, probably digging into some racial memories. “Twelve,” the flowers admitted, bobbing slowly. “We were there before the dead steel was made, and the first small lives spread over the galaxy, destroying the garden, harvesting our seeds, and were harvested in turn by the dead metal.”

“The Anti-Life seems to have decided that the Tekron are not enough to do the job. They have formed the Xenosyms to further destroy biospheres completely, and by our estimation, have depopulated three of the minor galaxies near this one using this method, and intend to do so to the Milky Way. Were the Gardeners aware of this?”

“There are distant songs telling of servants of the Life-Dark appearing recently in this pool of stars.” The flowers aimed in all directions. “Their touch is upon the small lives that came to this realm, chasing after us after they stumbled upon our pod between the stars. The Elders all perished to the Life-Dark, and only us podlings were able to separate and hide ourselves on the many scattered stones of this star. They hunt us down and kill us whenever they find us.”

I nodded. “Sounds like Gardeners coming to populated worlds,” I noted ironically.

“They have no purpose to their harvesting other than extinction,” the flowers almost sniffed.

“It’s called ‘weeding’. Cull the unwanted, keep what is wanted. A life form that seeds new life is their very definition of a weed.” It danced a moment as it digested that concept. They probably considered most forms of life fertilizer, not living. “Actually, I believe they mostly erred by making enemies of you, as I doubt you have much use for other intelligent races, especially emotional ones. Their aim is to reduce the power of the Warp, which is powered by sentient thought and emotions, something I doubt you have any care for, either. Alas, your gardens keep giving rise to species that feed the Warp, and so natural allies have become a spreader of weeds and a weeder. Rather amusing...”

“The Life-Dark seeks our extinction?” the Gardener asked.

“And that of all sentient life, not just you.” I regarded the plant calmly. “Have the Gardeners ever worked with another species?”

“No.”

“Are you prepared to?”

“For what purpose? We garden.”

“There will be neither gardens nor Gardeners if the Anti-Life has its way... and they are making multiple efforts to make that happen. They devised the Tekron. They are bringing the Xenosyms, whose numbers are greater than the Gardeners, and who can eat ALL your gardens, forever. Now they have suborned sentient races with all their energies to hunt you down. I would not be surprised if the Anti-Life start camping stars where Gardeners have gathered, waiting for you to migrate so they can kill you all.”

The plant folded in on itself again, as if thinking. “The Life-Dark is moving in many ways. They have great power...”

“If you think you can flee them or out-live them, well, three galaxies already died to them. Eventually they can spread out to every galaxy everywhere. I believe they were there before you, and if you can’t kill them, they will be there after you.

“The galaxy is their garden, and they want a garden that is cold and silent and only stone and fire. Their purposes are not your own. You can fight, or you can run, but you will only die tired if the latter.”

The flower bush was definitely agitated. “Small lives are treacherous.”

“The Gardeners are ravenous,” I countered calmly. “When things wish to live, treachery is to be expected, is it not?” I leaned forwards. “Seriously, you think you are so above things that it doesn’t sound like you’ve ever talked with any sentients you didn’t plan on mulching anyway. Treachery goes both ways... and yet we are gearing up to fight something you are helpless against.

“Gardener, I think it is time you actually looked at your garden and learned about it, instead of just harvesting and seeding like idiots.”

“Working with the harvest...” It sounded disbelieving.

“Dying to the Anti-Life... or not,” I retorted.

The Gardener slumped down slightly. “I would have to speak with others.”

“You have no elder to speak with. Would this choice even be valid?”

“Different Gardeners. We are our own pod. If we were to join another, we would be... assimilated.”