The Xenobotanist's Secret

The planet Sylvan wasn’t green. It was a world of twilight hues—indigo forests, silver rivers, and a deep, violet sky. My mission, as a xenobotanist for the Astra Corporation, was to catalog its flora for potential profit or peril. Mostly, I found peril.

Sylvan’s plants were beautiful and deadly. Vines that spat corrosive pollen. Flowers that emitted neurotoxins. It was a lonely job, suited to someone like me who preferred the company of silent, dangerous things to the noise of other people.

I found the Moss in a hidden geothermal valley the orbital scans had missed. It carpeted a rock face in intricate, lace-like patterns, glowing with a soft, internal blue light. It was the first thing on Sylvan that felt… gentle.

My scanners went haywire. It wasn’t emitting toxins. It was emitting complex quantum signals. Synaptic patterns. It wasn’t a plant. It was a neural network.

Driven by a curiosity that overrode protocol, I removed my glove. The air was cool and sweet. I pressed my bare palm against the Moss.

The world vanished.

I was someone else. A man named Elias. I was laughing, helping build a makeshift shelter—the first colony hab. The hope was a physical ache in my chest. I looked up at the violet sky, not with fear, but with wonder. “Home,” I whispered.

I jerked my hand back, gasping. The memory—so vivid, so real—wasn’t mine. The Moss hadn’t just communicated. It had imprinted.

I spent the next week in a fever of discovery. The Moss was a living recorder. It didn’t just store data; it stored consciousness. Emotions. Sensory experiences. Every touch brought a new memory from the first colonization mission, the one that had vanished without a trace fifty years ago.

I met them all. Anya, the geologist who found beauty in every strange rock. Kai, the botanist who sang to the plants. Elias, their leader, whose hope never faltered.

I learned their story. It wasn’t a disaster that killed them. It was a slow, quiet tragedy. A terraforming enzyme had interacted unpredictably with their own biology, sending them into a collective, peaceful stasis. Their bodies had returned to the ecosystem, but their minds—their essences—had been slowly absorbed and preserved by the Moss. They weren't dead. They were sleeping in the garden.

This was the greatest discovery in human history. It was proof of a continuity of consciousness after physical death. Astra Corporation would call it a universe-changing breakthrough. I knew what they’d really call it: a product.

They would carve up the Moss, ship it in sample boxes, and dissect it to learn its secrets. They would market digital heaven to the highest bidder. The serene, collective memory of these pioneers would be shredded into sellable fragments.

I couldn’t do it.

My official report was a masterpiece of lies. “Valley contains high concentrations of psychoactive, hallucinogenic moss. A contamination risk. Recommend quarantine and avoidance. No commercial value.”

Astra Corporation, focused on profit, lost all interest. The valley was marked as a hazardous zone and forgotten.

But I didn’t forget.

My mission ended. A new crew arrived. I didn’t go home. I resigned my post and used my savings to build a small, stealth-based research hab on the edge of the valley. I became the guardian of the secret.

Now, I am the xenobotanist who never left. I tend the Moss. I spend my days with the memories of the first crew. I’ve told Elias about Earth’s progress. I’ve shown Anya the new mineralogical data from the northern ridges. I sing Kai’s songs back to the vines.

Sometimes, at the end of a long day, I press my palm against the cool, glowing Moss.

I feel Elias’s hand on my shoulder. I hear Anya’s laughter. I feel Kai’s quiet contentment.

The comms unit in my hab buzzes every few months with a message from Astra, offering me a lucrative ride home. I always decline.

I had a mission to find value in this world. I thought it would be in a chemical, a compound, a resource to be sold.

I was wrong. The value wasn’t in what could be taken. It was in what could be shared.

My secret isn't the Moss. My secret is that I’m no longer lonely. I have a family here, woven into the very fabric of this indigo world. I am the bridge between two missions, between the past and the future, tending a garden of memories that is far more alive than anyone could ever imagine.

And that is a discovery worth protecting.