The only sounds came from the pool of water, faint ripples caused by the fish as they swam. Trance loved the peace and the quiet in the Garden. Here the Long Night had never been, here there was only silence and calm.

Footsteps broke the peace, mere whispers that echoed loudly through the stillness. Trance looked around; she was so deep within the Hydroponics Garden, no one but her ever wandered in so far. She had never been disturbed before.

Rev appeared between two tall oxygenating trees, his head bowed in apology at his interruption. He was carrying a potted plant. It was small and grotesquely ugly; its stem was twisted malevolently and its sickly yellow leaves drooped downwards enhancing its ill appearance. The Hapha plant had the dubious honour of being considered the Universe's ugliest flora.

Trance walked to Rev's side and touched a leaf with reverence, "it's sick."

"I believe so."

She took the plant and began inspecting its roots and leaves. She picked up a scanner and ran a test on the soil. Rev watched her remove the plant from its pot and gently brush the earth from its roots.

"She needs new soil and her roots are too confined."

"She?"

"Didn't you know she was a girl plant?"

She began talking softly to the plant, as one might a small child, or a frightened animal. She looked up at the Magog, "I think she would feel better if she lived here."

"I do not think it would belong."

The girl frowned, "why should she have too?"

"This plant…The Hapha plant, is from my world." he told her.

"There are so many plants here. At least one from every world that was in the Commonwealth, and many other planets too."

He looked down, "except the Magog Homeworld."

"Then this can be the first." Her eyes were serious, "I think she will be happy here."

"The Commonwealth was about peace and unity. So is this Garden. My people have no place here." He smiled sadly at the look of confusion on her face. "That is why the plant does not belong here."

"She does." She replied. "So do you."

"The Divine has shown me that true Way of Magog…that of calm. But for most of my people… They listen to sound of their blood. If my people came here, this Garden would be ashes."

Rev settled on the small wall next to Trance and picked the plant up. His manor appeared to be even more solemn than usual.

"Some would say it is as ugly as the planet that created it."

Trance brushed her fingers over the leaves; "I don't think she's ugly."

The Magog seemed quietly pleased. "Perhaps not. But general perceptions about what is ascetically pleasing would label it so."

"I don't understand why people have to label things. Can't she just be a plant?"

The old philosophy question rose before him…What is the difference between a plant and a weed? "Yes. And it is to us." He was silent for a while and then he spoke again. "It is odd how somewhere as beautiful as my world should spawn something as reviled as that plant." He sighed, a deeply held pain echoing in his voice, "and my people too."

"I've never been there."

"The rivers are alive with fish so bright that the surface of the water glitters in an array of colour. The trees are heavy with blossom and after every rainstorm there are rainbows so big they fill the sky." He sighed, "but few people ever get the chance to see its beauty."

"Perhaps we should change that." Trance said, "by having a part of your world here, in the Garden…for everyone to see."

Rev looked at the ugly plant. Almost as ugly as the acts his people had inflicted on the Universe. That plant seemed to have come directly from the Divine's irony.

"I think it should go here." Trance said as she made a small hollow in the soil. "Put it in."

Rev settled the plant in and watched Trance pack the dirt around it. It looked as ugly as ever…

But oddly it did not look out of place.

"See, she belongs here." She carefully watered it and turned back to Rev. "Just like the Magog will one day."

© T S "NORTHERN STAR" FENN