Ep 10 - Old Growth

I hope you're having a wonderful week. Welcome to the season finale of Bion Season 1.

“Thank you so much for going on this journey together with me. You, dear listener, are”

the entire reason for Bion. Each and every writer you've heard this season wrote stories

they hoped would touch you. This podcast is a bridge to take you into the amazing worlds

that they've created. If you can't believe we're wrapping up already, don't worry. We're already busy putting together season 2. On top of that we will have interviews with many of our authors from this season coming out on Patreon. Find the link in the show notes and be the first to know when those interviews are coming out. Our final story is old growth by Steve Zyssen. Steve Zyssen is a biotech journalist whose fiction has appeared in

nature's future, daily science fiction and little blue marble among other places. He edited

“a science fiction anthology upon crock future. He lives north of Boston. And now let's live”

this story together. I was still procrastinating on my plan month-long process of cleaning out the office ahead of my retirement when my old pal Roy Harvard interrupted with a call. I didn't mind his intrusion. Most people clean out their offices in a day or in a few minutes if HR thugs are hovering over their shoulders. I'll be taking my time. I gave him to procrastination and to grow his call. "You've got to come see this," Roy said in his hyperbolic way. "I found

some old growth forest. I removed a book from the shelf, put it into the empty cardboard box, and took a long breath." Progress. "I'm not up for another wild goose chase Roy. I'm packing

it in." Where do you find them now? You'll never believe it. Right here. Right where. Here.

Massa. Goddamn. Choosets. There's no more old growth forest here. You can't fool me into going on another hunt to nowhere. This ruse is to get me to show up to a surprise retirement party. I told everyone, "No parties. I just want to fade away into the woodland," topple over and return to the soil. He laughed. "There's no retirement party for a grumpy old state forest or like you. Everybody's happy you're going, especially your replacement. Get over yourself."

"Okay, I trailed off. A little disappointed there'd be no party to not show up to." "You've got to believe me. There's a hemlock off the Mohawk Trail that could be four or five hundred years old. We've got to get a course sample. You're the best at it, even with your shaky hands." Bring that replacement of yours and see if we can find out what these old trees are saying to each other. I thought about grabbing another book off the shelf.

Still don't buy it. This whole state's been clear cut two times over. And now you just happen to discover an ancient hemlock somewhere in western Massachusetts. Yep, a local tip me off to it. Roy was getting up there too. Was it possible he'd simply lost it? I wondered whether he was just trying to relive the glory days of his big find of old growth forest back outside Montreal in the 80s. The discovery that put him on the map. Since this alleged growth wasn't far away,

I decided to humor him. One last opportunity to be in the field with my able replacement.

“Maybe you should learn something too. The next morning was as good a time as any to go on this”

quest. I drove the old pickup to our office parking lot to rendezvous with Naomi, the fungus whisperer. She was leaning against her rivian pickup when I pulled up in my clunky old junker. She looked up casually from her phone, pushed her locks away from her eyes and tossed her equipment in the back. She hopped in the front seat. Sure you don't want me to drive, Ted. I'm not retired yet, and you can't confiscate my license just because I'm so old. I'm not sure

your pseudo truck thingy can handle the hills. Oh, it can handle. Have it your way for a little longer. She was just giving me the needle. I was comfortable with her as my replacement, although sometimes I didn't let that on with her. I wanted to keep her on her toes so she could learn as much as possible before I left and faded into the forest, degrading into a pile of crumbly

spongy humus. We drove in silence on route two for the first 15 minutes as she answered emails

on her phone. It was early morning, too damn early to talk shop and still cool enough that I could

no traffic drowning them out. Naomi came up for air from her emails and looked to each side.

“Have you ever met Roy? I asked. I caught the end of a panel he was on once,”

I got to warn you. He's old school. Older old school than you. We were falling into silence again when I thought I heard the trees talking to me. But Naomi beat me to it. Did you hear that? She asked. I did. I didn't even have to use my equipment for that one. What did you hear? She rolled down her window and listened with a cup to ear. My old truck still has crank windows for an old crank. Not sure. Something. Something. I leaned my head toward the open window. The trees in this area

have gotten used to us. They know we can hear them speak through their micro-risal fungi networks and they found a way to broadcast to us without the use of Naomi's ground-breaking natural intelligence and I equipment. They've learned since she's been working with them. This part of

“her two doubles as the Mohawk Trail, which was once the main trading route for Native Americans”

between the Atlantic tribes and others in upstate New York. I love it because it follows the Mills River and Deerfield River into the Hussac Range where we're headed. Before our silence overwhelms us, we're in Florida. Not the state. Florida Massachusetts, that is. We're in the Hussac Range in the Berkshire's lack of hikers in the area was probably why no one discovered this alleged old growth. If it existed. Roy was waiting for us at the bottom of the hill. The hatch to

a Subaru was open and he was sitting on the bumper, legs crossed. He stood as we approached.

Finally, he declared, "I get to meet the great Naomi Jenkins Tree Tucker. Naomi let his

rhetorical flourish Wush pastor and disappear into the mountain air. It was relatively cooler than

“in the valley on this August morning, but the humidity was still brutal even here this early.”

She's great, but what about me? Your ancient history," Roy said. She's the future. And he was right. Naomi hefted her backpack on in what seemed as noisy a manner as possible, grunting as she shifted the equipment inside to the middle of her back. "Let's go old timers. I'd love to lead, but Roy, you're the only one who knows where it is. Allegedly," I grumbled. "Rug grabbed a walking stick out of his car and shut the hatch.

We found a gravel road at the far side of the parking lot. It was mostly flat at first, then

suddenly uphill. The service road is for the wind turbines and we'll take us to the top, but we're only going about halfway until we dive into the forest." Roy said. "The young trees soon gave way to larger ones that hadn't been disturbed in 75 years or more. Many of them were well over 100 feet high, but there was no hint of old growth forced in them. Half an hour into our climb, we reached a hairpin turn. Roy shouted ahead to Naomi. "Here," she turned back to him. "Where?" he pointed to a

dense thicket. "This way," he said and took the lead, hacking at the brush with his walking stick. Naomi followed him onto the narrow path that disappeared, swallowed up by the greenery, by the time I caught up. "Don't lose me," I shouted through the branches, scratching at my face. A birch branch rebounded and smacked me in the ear. "Oh, no words of concern filtered back from the other two up ahead. I couldn't even hear them slashing through the underbrush anymore.

I needed to catch up. Running through the underbrush, the branches slapping at my face, I stumbled into an open area and went down. Naomi picked me up and Roy handed me my glasses. "You good?" Naomi asked. "I was shaking, but the forest floor dufflayer had saved me." "I'm okay. It was a soft landing," I said, stomping my feet. "This feels really healthy and very deep." "Yeah. It may be the best dufflayer I've ever seen," Naomi said. "I can't wait to get started.

With my glasses back on, I marveled at one of the finest examples of old growth forest I'd ever stumbled upon," or into. Old growth forest isn't a congregation of old trees confined to a nursing home, waiting to die. Old growth is the most vibrant and diverse forest ecosystem, with magnificent 500-year-old trees, others, fallen and rotting on the forest floor, seedlings, and a variety of smaller trees of numerous species stretching to the canopy among the towering old guard.

birches, massive hickories, American chestnuts, and what we came to find magnificent rows of ancient

“and locks. Towering above the others were stands of so straight eastern pine, and it was old growth”

and middle growth and young growth and all the growth. The species were naturally spaced out, so enough light made it down to the smaller trees, all growing together in a fertile soil of fungi and nutrients. Naomi plunged her probe into the duff layer, and her arm disappeared up to her shoulder, beneath the oak and maple leaves and pine needles. She tried to pull it out, but it seemed stuck as if something were sucking her down into the earth. Naomi grabbed her buried arm with her

freehand and yanked, it finally gave in, and popped out, covered in white strands of fungi, ants, and other crawly things, and rich brown humus. "This is wonderful," she said. "I love the smell of rotting things. It's very alive." She placed her probe again a couple of feet below the top layer.

“She turned her laptop that was balanced on her backpack on the ground, with headphones she listened.”

"So much chatter, amazing!" Roy leaned down and tried to pull one headphone off Naomi's ear,

but she waved him away. "What are they saying?" "Quiet!" I assembled my increment board, attaching the auger to the handle, time to determine the age of this hemlock beauty. Placing the bit at chest level, I twisted the core sampler into the huge hemlock. After several turns, Naomi flung off her headphones and covered her ears with her palms. "They're screaming!" she yelled. "You're hurting them!"

I made a few more turns and stopped. It was probably all I needed. Naomi was crying. Roy and I helped her up. "Don't ever do that again," she said. Holding out a core sample, I said, "What? I thought it didn't hurt them. How will we ever know their ages then?" The whole network of trees was in pain. She wiped her tears and looked around for her equipment before picking it up. "We'll know all about them because they'll tell us

with this!" she shook her headphones at me. I was sorry for all the pain I inflicted during my career taking core samples, these invasive biopsies. Recovered Naomi put her probe back in the hole of the duff layer. "What are they saying now?" I asked. She took off her headphones and said deadpan. "They're saying we will outlast you." "I didn't know whether I was just so proud of these trees or frightened for humans. Either way, I was at peace. I fell backwards into the soft

duff and did leaf angels. Hoping this would be my final resting place. This was their world.

And now Naomi's to tell us all about. This is a wonderful story to conclude the first season

of biome. After a season in which several stories took us to faraway planets, this tale brings us firmly back to earth. From its lush descriptions, I can practically smell the rich loam that Ted, the main character and Naomi has soon to be replacement in counter in the woods. In my mind's eye, I can see the branches of birch, ash, and hemlock trees swaying in the morning light. When the

“narrator describes the trees speaking, I think of the way leaves whisper on summer breezes. Such”

imagery feels like the fiction equivalent of what is now known as taking a forest bath, a practice of immersing yourself in a forest or woodland environment, and deeply soaking it in with every sense, focusing on the sights, the sounds, smells, and textures of the environment around you. I'm not surprised that studies show that forest baths are associated with a variety of health benefits, including reduced stress. It's literally touching grass. It's reminding yourself that

you are part of something much larger and much older than yourself. In this story, Ted gets such a reminder. He considers himself old, and maybe a little out of step. As he packs his office, I get a sense of Ted's ambivalence at this transition point in his life. On one hand, he repeatedly insists he just wants to fade away into the woods that he has spent his career studying. On the other, despite his protestations, Ted is clearly a little myth by the fact that there will be no

party to send him off, or no party for him not to attend. It isn't so surprising then that he takes his friend up on the chance for one more adventure. One last chance to discover something new,

time, and novelty. For example, it's a paradox that something older than the United States might be

“new, simply because people haven't been around to catalog it yet. This echoes the experience of”

indigenous people around the world who are discovered by Westerners, but who have been harmoniously living on their land for tens of thousands of years. The story also shows us that while Ted has been a forester for decades, he still has a lot to learn about trees. For him, it's a surprise that drilling a core sample might hurt so much, or that the whole forest would scream in agony because what happens to just one tree. I also love the parallelism between the description

of the healthy forest ecosystem, with its mixture of ancient and young trees, and the fact that this expedition includes Roy, experience but still working, Naomi, who is entering the prime of her career, and Ted, who, in this case, might imagine himself as one of the fallen logs on the forest floor. Like the trees of different ages, the characters each bring different kinds of experience

to the scene. The other theme that this story explores is communication. The first sentence opens

“on this note with Ted picking up Roy's call. This gives us a moment to consider just how important”

communication and the supporting technology is to us. For most of us, our relationships are largely mediated and cultivated by technology that, with their miles and miles of cables and wire, resembles vast root and micro-risal networks. When Naomi taps into the forest network, her device creates a bridge between the trees and people. And what do the trees say through this bridge? They say they will outlast us. My reaction to this message from the trees is similar to Ted's.

At first, it seems ominous. Are the trees plotting something? Are the characters going to make it

out of the forest alive? Many of us grew up hearing stories of people getting lost in the deep dark

“woods sometimes forever. But on reflection, I can appreciate a quiet confidence. Maybe even a”

sort of gentle acknowledgement in the message. You may hurt us, the trees might be saying, but we trees will outlast anything you do to us. We will be here long after your gone as individuals and as a species. Whether we choose to read that message is hopeful, threatening, or entirely in different to humans is up to us. So what did you think of this story? Email me at [email protected]. You can also find that address in the show notes. I'd love to hear from you. If you've listened

all the biome stories this season, go vote for your favorite in our Patreon poll. It's totally free to anyone with a Patreon login. Just click the link in the show notes. And if you haven't listened all the stories in season 1, what are you waiting for? Go check them out. Like I said though, don't wait. The poll will close in just a couple of days. I'll announce the top story next week as we close out the season. After we wrap up on season 1, we will be releasing interviews with our

season 1 authors, as well as episodes from the desk where I will give you a peek behind the curtain on the state of science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction today. Episodes will continue to come out on Tuesdays, except for the weeks when we publish written interviews. You'll find the written interviews available for free over on Patreon. Meanwhile, season 2 is already in the works. We're recording some of the best fantasy and science fiction stories you'll ever hear,

and I can't wait to share them with you. So make sure you subscribe to this podcast. You'll be

the first to know when they come out. Finally, I want to give a special thank you to Shinella,

our biosphere level Patreon supporter. You are a vital part of what biom is becoming. I invite you to join me next Tuesday in our season end episode. Thank you for listening to biom with me, your host and narrator, Alex Zubin. Until next time, farewell, wherever the days take you. (light music)