Free Heat and Light by Ellen van Neerven Page A

re-forming. These plantpeople, who divide their time between the water, Russell Island and the edges of some of the smaller unoccupied islands, must cooperate during the process, for the safety of all.
    Some of them ‘root’ – that is, they firm their roots to an area, into the ground, and are hard to persuade to move; you can’t get them away. Milligan tells me there are a few that actively voice their opinions within the community, speaking out against the government and their plans.
    They are a very intelligent species. I read a transcript of an interview with one of them. She spoke well, from the notes, a steady, formalistic English. Hers was the only first-person account and insight I have into what these people are about. A plant’s mind.
    The government doesn’t know the exact number of the population, anywhere from seventy to a hundred is their guess. The plantpeople mostly used to inhabit Russell Island, but since the government has moved in, they have split to the closest islands.
    Some of the plantpeople are regularly called in to the Science Centre for testing. They call them ‘specimens’ here, I notice, and I try to follow suit but it’s an odd word on my tongue.
    During my induction I sit down with my boss in his office and we have a meeting with Sophie, the admin girl, also present. My boss tells me to ‘keep things as peaceful as possible’. He suggests I talk to the leader. Her name is Larapinta. Sophie adds, ‘there is Hinter, too.’ Milligan says, ‘but he’s more difficult.’
    Milligan tells me Sophie will take me on a tour of the facility and sort out my paperwork. He says he’ll take me out on the tinny on Thursday, and I assume it’s the last I’ll see of him today. I hope Sophie will sort everything out quickly; the waiting around part of a new job always stresses me out. I just want to get started and learn the ropes as soon as I can. Sophie takes me out of the office section and shows me the laboratories, loading dock and the examination rooms. After a while, I don’t really bother remembering people’s names.
    She swipes us back into our office space and puts me at a currently unoccupied desk. She downloads the paperwork for a security pass and gets me to fill it in. In between filling in other forms, I go to the water cooler and I grab a plastic cup from up the top.
    Then I see Milligan coming back. ‘Larapinta’s here now,’ he says. ‘Meeting room one.’
    ‘Oh, right,’ I say, and straighten up. I hear my boots tap against the temporary, cheap wooden tiles as I walk down the hall. I don’t know where to go and walk around for a while from door to door, but I eventually remember the meeting rooms are just after the toilets, next to the examination room.
    There are two sandplants standing outside the exam room. I walk past quickly. Seeing them for the first time, I am struck both by how startlingly human-like they are, and how alarmingly unhuman they are. Green, like something you would see in a comic strip, but they are real.
    I walk into the meeting room and Larapinta is there, sitting at the table.
    Larapinta is less green than the others. She has wild frond-like hair across her face, bleached pale pink in parts, perhaps from the sun. She has a face that’s like me and you. With space for two small eyes and a hint of a mouth. Am I blind not to notice much difference? Of course there is the body of them, shaped like a post, covered in prickles except for the hands. Both the females and the males are identical. She has no breasts. I understand they are ungendered; see, their gender is not predetermined and is only communicated.
    ‘I’m sorry about how they’ve been treating you,’ I say immediately. ‘I want to tell you I’m here to mediate. I will listen to your needs and try to make it work. That’s my job.’
    ‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘Water?’
    I realise I am still holding the styrofoam cup, which is empty.
    She tops up my cup with her hand. She holds