"Ents."

Carlos' voice is quiet, almost reverent, while he studies the forest's edge. It moved closer again. Tomorrow the ship will be enclosed completely by the trees. Mil sends her colleague aquestioning glance. She is absorbed by her report and didn't pay attention to the technician's remark.

"What did you just say?"

"Ents. Don't you know the 'Lord of the Rings'? You're supposed to be the one with the posh education. J. R. R. Tolkien wrote a story about hobbits and elves. There are also ents in there."

"A fairytale? What's that got to do with our situation here?"

Carlos glares at her, the dark rings around his eyes telling of too less sleep.

"It's not a fairytale, it's the greatest fantasy epic of all times. Ents look like trees, but they aren't trees exactly, more like the shepherds of the forest. But that's not important. The important thing is, ents can walk and talk, even if they do it very slowly. They are intelligent, a very ancient race. Like those out there."

Mil stares at her screen thoughtfully. She finished her report and wanted to explain her conclusions to Carlos. Andrej left the ship two days ago. They didn't hear from him or Dray since. Carlos works almost nonstop at the engine. Right now, he lets the ship's computer run a check to exclude the possibility he missed a solution to heir problem. In the meantime, the natural optimism of the technician starts to show deep cracks. An aggressive beep tears Mil out of her train of thoughts.

"Damn!"

Carlos is already halfway to his station. The alert announces another major problem. Soon, the technician's capable brown fingers move over the touchpad to shut down the alert. But Carlos still stares at the screen, analysing this new malfunction with a frown. Then he heads back to the engine room without another word. Mil leans back in her chair to continue the reflections on their situation. Finally she enters a search request into the main computer: 'Tolkien - ents'. The search turns up with results immediately.

Mil is already so absorbed by her exciting read she doesn't notice Carlos reentering the room.

"This time it was just an overheated bearing. I replaced it. But I still can't find a way to start the engine again. It's fully functional, we lack just the energy to start up the plasma chamber. As soon as we manage to get it to running temperature, our energy problems would be solved. And this is exactly what we are unable to achieve. It's a vicious circle. But we went over that already. You wanted to tell me about your theory concerning the trees?"

"It's probably not so important if we remain stuck here anyway. But if you're interested, here!"

She zooms in on the cell structure forming the interior of the pith in the centre of one of the giant trees. Then she calls up some pictures from the ships archives. The similarities are astonishing.

"The cellular structure resembles the one in the spinal cord of vertebrates. You know this forms an important part of our central nervous system?"

Carlos studies the pictures with an unreadable expression. Finally he nods slowly.

"This supports the theory we deal with intelligent trees. It's obvious they are able to move."

"I wonder about the level of their intelligence. Possibly they are capable of reflexive actions only. But I can't preclude they own a veritable brain, maybe in the root area. Or maybe the pith consists of enough of these cells to take over cranial functions. The big pores seem to be organs of perception. We still lack a lot of information, but I doubt they would let me continue with my investigations. We burnt dozens if not hundreds of them in the landing and attacked something like a kindergarten with the shuttle. Probably we would fight back in a similar situation as well."

"I'm not sure, Mil. Maybe we see this with to much of a bias. They destroyed the shuttle, sure. But here they took their time. And Dray ... at the end, she sounded not afraid, fascinated if anything."

"I know. But maybe she was hallucinating. She left the shuttle without a mask. We have no idea what kind of spores or other stuff she got to breath out there. Or ... I don't know, Carlos. What are we supposed to do?"

"We have some time left before they reach the ship. I'll run this check to the end. Maybe the program has a suggestion we didn't come up with already."

With a a smile he points at Mil's screen, showing the drawing of an ent. It's an artful illustration from an ancient print version of Tolkien's work.

"You still have some reading material for a few hours."