Chapter 6: Experimentation--Frankenstein or Pasteur?

After a couple of years folks came to visit on the weekends just to take in the flower displays that Josie was growing. They changed with the seasons and were always beautiful. I provided a few benches here and there for people to rest their legs.

The clover field behind us thrived into a dark-green mat of foliage. We began cutting slices of it for other clover fields. They all seemed washed-out in comparison to our seeded field.

I remembered to check on my experiment. I got a lesson in the will and way of the forest. I found a wide, dark green glade surrounded by enormous trees that hadn't been there when I seeded that mean, bare scraggly patch of ground. The ground had dropped and a soak had formed at one edge which formed a small rivulet that ran for a few feet then dove into the forest mat. It seemed as if the woods were thicker and more robust in the direction which the water took. I smiled. The forest mind did react to new stimulus, both fair and foul.

I suppose that I should have left a note describing what I proposed, but I didn't. I rinsed out the bottle I had been given in the rivulet, adding a sample of the original spore culture to its waters. Then I stripped and had a nice soak in the sun-warmed water. I figured that adding my scent to the mix might cause a reaction, but I didn't know what would happen. I rose, dressed and left, assuming that the forest mind would take a season or more to analyze the tastes I'd given it. If I was correct, then the forest communicated with chemicals; sugars, salts and such. I was not a wise one that could sit and decode such an esoteric language, but I might be able to pass a message using it in my own primitive way. How else would an ephermal thing such as man consider itself against a virtually immortal being such as a forest? An ecosystem? A planet!

When I returned to the cabin I carefully wrote out my earliest experiment with the woods and its result, as well as my secondary attempt at communication. I had Josie read it and offer her comments, then I offered Ruth the baton to comment and either chastise or commend me. She seemed neutral of opinion but under the surface she felt quite excited. I believe that she saw the long-term implications that I did. We might become a vastly different civilization during the process but if my hyper-optimistic theories were correct our race's future was insured. There was a huge spectrum of possible outcomes.

The letter was sent off by teleport courier to Castle Yellowstone marked for Cathy's attention. She'd know what to do with it.

Josie dropped two little babies. This disrupted our home life as nothing else could. I was washing diapers daily. Our children did not express any felinoid characteristics, and at first appeared distressingly normal. Slowly, as they grew, they began to get proportionately taller. By the time they reached three years old they started to grow in a fine coat of black fur. Ruth was right. Two blood lines made it a vital hybrid. We had Yeti as a blood-line. It virtually guaranteed our children would have long lives and a high disease resistance. We wouldn't know what skills they'd express until puberty or a bit beyond that. Hell, I was patient. I could wait. Josie, however, about blew a relief valve.

Once they started making their way around the property the cats started coming around. No, not little house kitty-cats or big mean barn cats. Bobcats and panthers. All I could figure out was that the kids sent out 'good vibrations' to the cats. They wouldn't have a damned thing to do with Josie or me, but the kids? Holy crap. I just shook my head and grinned. (As an aside, I have to admit that the first time I witnessed it I came very close to declaring war on four-legged felines but Josie totally lost it. She was about a half-heartbeat from calling up a gravel storm and pulverizing the lot of them except the kids had their arms around the cats' necks. It positively saved their furry asses.)