The One Tree of Luna by Todd McCaffrey Read Free Book Online Page A

begun to understand my father.
    This is the point at which, according to all the Earth books I’ve read, my mom would have taken charge. But you as you’ve gotta know by know, we’re Loonies and we don’t do thing the way you do on Earth.
    â€œWhat are you thinking?” my mom asked instead.
    And that’s when I knew I wasn’t a kid any more.
    To be honest, she took me by surprise. It was a moment before I had a reply.
    â€œIs there a way we can identify this man?” I asked. “I mean, surely if he were a Loony we
     would have —” I broke off when I caught the way mom was looking at me.
    â€œHmm,” I said as I conceded her unspoken point. It could just as easily be that something in my tree had changed to attract this person. “No, I still think we should check for any recent arrivals.”
    She gave me a half-nod. Hmm, so I still hadn’t figured it all out. “Oh! We should correlate for anyone who’s been on Earth near Dad’s trees!”
    â€œWhat else?” Mom asked, making it clear that I was still not done.
    â€œWell,” I said, “naturally we need to set up a guard on the tree.”
    â€œAnd?”
    I looked at her, stumped. She smiled and patted my knee while moving her hand up by her ear, activating her comms.
    â€œSecurity, this is Cherie Ki, I am declaring a stage one biological emergency,” my mom said. My eyes went wide with surprise. “Do NOT use the alarms — we have an intruder who may be carrying a biological hazard.”
    â€œDr. Ki, do you have any ID on the intruder?” the security chief came back calmly. I smiled at my mom — she’d turned on her external audio so I could listen in.
    â€œNot yet,” mom said. “We’re still working on that. But this is in connection with the earthside emergency that my husband was called away on.”
    â€œYes, Doctor,” the security chief said with a tone of increased alertness.
    â€œAnd Don, I want a twenty-four/seven watch on the tree,” my mom added. I knew Don Ostermann, he was the best we had.
    â€œI see,” Don said. “Jenny reported an incident the other day but didn’t —”
    â€œThis is related,” my mother said. “It’s her tree, you know.”
    â€œOh, yeah, I know!” Don Ostermann said. My eyes went wide and I flushed with embarrassment. The Head of Luna Security knew about my tree?
    â€œI’ll let you know more as soon as we’ve got it,” mom said, breaking the connection and telling the computers, “Central library, data search.”
    â€œSubject?”
    â€œKeyboard entry,” my mom said, rising from her chair. Over her shoulder she said to me, “You get some sleep!”
    â€œMom!” I wailed. How could she possibly expect me to sleep with all this going on?
    â€œI’m going to need you to take over in the morning,” she told me. “Your father’s not here and
     you’re probably the next expert we have on the dryads —”
    â€œDryads?”
    â€œWell, who did you expect your tree friend was, honey?” Mom said, tossing me a smile before exiting through the automatic door.
    Dryads? Do you know how long it took to look up dryads? 0.32 seconds, that’s how long. The network must have been working overtime.
    I pulled up a complete download and was checked by a security screen. It prompted me for a passcode. I was astonished, I’d never found anything requiring a passcode on the network before — we Loonies pride ourselves on our freedom of information. With my tongue poking through my lips — I do that when I’m nervous — I entered my passcode and received a priority data assignment.
    The Japanese word was Kodama , the Scottish had a similar spirit called the Ghillie Dhu . Dryads and Hamadryads — uh, oh, my friend was a hamadryad — if her tree died, she’d die. And, from the