Nine months later

“Navo, the dig site is amazing.” Lina was back on one of her breaks. Dumping her her knapsack on the floor, she rushed over to the dining table and raised her hand to open the serving dishes and uncover the source of the appetizing aroma.

Navo pulled her away. “Lina, you’re home now, back in civilization. At least, wash up before attacking the food,” he chided.

“Sorry, but I have been living on camp rations.” Lina pouted. She dashed off to their bedroom, freshened up, and returned smelling like a peach.

“Goodness you tidy up fast.” Navo laughed. “And you’re as fresh as a daisy. How do you do it?”

“A lady never tells.” Lina winked, picked up a plate and attacked the food. “Mmm, steaming mutton stew with millet porridge. My favorites,” she said, sniffing the items she had ladled onto her plate.

Navo joined her at the table. “So you were telling about the dig,” he reminded her.

“Oh yeah! Its always slow hard work when we start, but now we’ve made so much progress. In the layers of the dig, you can see that the town was built up over a period of hundred years and then destroyed in days and the process repeats. Even so, because the town gets resettled from outside each time, the technological progress is the same as it is for the rest of us, as can be seen from relics and artifacts. So the thin layer of discontinuity every century is eerie.” Lina shoved a large spoonful of porridge in her mouth. “Ouch … hot, hot,” she complained.

“Steaming porridge is hot.” Navo shrugged and handed her a glass of cool water. “Do you have any clue as to what causes the deaths?”

“Not yet. Rega’s team surveyed the whole area for cracks and craters in the land, but found nothing unusual. They’re back here now. Sippy’s team has been testing the various layers of soil for toxins and chemicals that might become active or release a gas under certain climate conditions. But nothing strange or unusual has shown up so far. The only interesting thing Sippy found, is that the nutrients in the soil deplete a lot faster than in most places, and the soil becomes almost devoid of nutrients in a hundred years. But then because of all the deaths, the soil becomes very fertile again.” This time Lina approached her food more gingerly.

“Yeww. That’s grizzly,” Navo wrinkled his nose. “Not exactly dinner table conversation.” He scowled.

Lina shrugged. “Yeah, but it does explain why the land is so fertile when a new batch of settlers start farming. I suppose I was silly to think that this oasis was particularly fertile. The depletion in nutrients may simply be a result of the excessive farming that is done there, except …” Lina hesitated.

“Except what?” Navo demanded.

Lina pressed her lips together. “Well, Sippy’s team found that for the past three cycles of civilization, the depletion of nutrients was actually far less in the farmland and more in other open spaces. Also, the same rapid depletion in nutrients has been happening for the last hundred years, even though there was no farming.”

“That certainly is strange,” Navo frowned, “but is it worrisome?”

“I’m not sure. You remember, when we were starting the dig, I told you we had to clear out a network of roots about six inches below the surface?”

“Oh, right! You mentioned a root system, very strong and intertwined. You thought some weed must have grown in the fertile soil and then died.” Navo recalled.

“Well, we found the same thing at two other spots we dug up more recently, but this time the root system was only two or three inches below the surface, so even though they are just roots, they seem to be growing. I think I was wrong in assuming they were dead.”

“Okay, but why is that surprising? I mean this plant form has probably spread because of the lack of competition from agriculture, right? And maybe, like grass, it was what grew in the open spaces when the area was inhabited. That would explain your nutrition depletion from the soil too, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes it would.” Lina drummed her fingers on the table. “I don’t know why, but something feels odd about it.”

“You think it’s dangerous?” Navo frowned. “Lina, you promised …”

“No, not dangerous,” Lina assured him. “It’s just that I don’t understand a few things about it.”

“And nothing drives you crazier than not understanding something, right?” Navo rolled his eyes.

“Well, yeah!” Lina’s eyes flashed. “I mean what’s the point of being an academic, if we’re not driven by puzzles and curiosities?”

“For some of us, it’s just a job. A pleasant one, but just that.” Navo sighed.

“Well, not for me!” Lina quipped.

“I know, Darling. I know. So tell me, what about these plants irk you so much?”

“Well, for one, they’re never mentioned in any of the historical records. Why would a plant put out an endless root system and never bloom, or bear fruit or anything at all?”

“Maybe, its not a normal plant then. Maybe it’s an underground network like some fungus, just leeching nutrients from the soil.”

“Perhaps, but its not mentioned in any of the historical records of this place, and no one has reported anything like it in any of the other oases. Believe me, I have been searching the records for such a plant. I’ve sent messages along with samples of root tissue to all the botanists and mycologists I know. No one has seen or heard of anything like it.”

“So this life form is unique to Nohikora?” Nova was alarmed.

“Seems so,” Lina shrugged.

“Well that can’t be a coincidence, can it?” Navo paled. “It must be dangerous. I mean, it feeds on dead humans. It is evil.”

“Navo, don’t be ridiculous. All plants feed on dead and decaying organisms including humans. It’s normal, not evil.” Lina scoffed.

Another two months later

Navo accepted the latest of Lina’s letters, that Ledo had just handed him, with a sigh of relief. As the end of the year approached, he became increasingly anxious, and every letter that arrived from the site brought him some measure of temporary relief. “At least, Lina is till alive,” he whispered to himself each time.

Fumbling, he opened the letter. Lina sounded ebullient.

My Darling Navo,

How are you? I miss you and your cooking. Perhaps, your cooking, more than you. I am so sick of the camping rations.

But my year is almost up, so I will be home soon, my love. I’m no closer to solving the mystery of the deaths, but with all the monitoring equipment in place, I am sure that mystery will be solved when the time is right.

In the mean time, I am close to solving the mystery of the root system. The latest dig shows that the roots are very close to the surface and almost pushing through it. I wonder what will happen once they do. I have got a camera focused on a patch where they are likely to emerge. Pava’s botany team from the Lesetta oasis is here with me. We are all so curious to see what will happen. Pava promised to credit me on her paper.

And don’t worry. I am being safe. We have the hazmat suits ready to wear at the the first sign of danger. I have cameras and measuring instruments set up to cover a radius of a mile around the central camp . We’ve set up alarm systems, and the team is working in two shifts, so some of us are always awake and alert. We’re ready for whatever is coming.

I’m so excited. Soon, I will have solved two major mysteries. Then, once I’m home, I’ll take a month off from work, and we can go on a vacation to the nice boring lake side resort in the Parisada Oasis that you love so much. I promise.

Love and kisses, Lina

Another two weeks later

Navo was pacing up and down his front yard, as he had been doing every few hours for the past couple of days. It had been a two weeks since he had last heard from Lina. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something terrible had happened to her.

When Ledo hadn’t returned a week ago with a message from Lina as expected, Navo had sent word to Professor Meko at the university. Meko was in charge of the research team that was analyzing the data arriving from the Nohikora oasis.

Meko had waited another couple of days, but when there was still no sign of Ledo, he had put together a rescue team including a doctor, two soldiers, and a chemist. They had loaded batteries shovels, bags, cases, protective suits, gas-masks, weapons, medicines, food and potable water into a van and set out with Coso for the dig sites.

Navo looked at his watch. It was noon, and three whole days since Meko had left with the rescue team. Then Navo heard the roar of an engine approaching from a distance.

He stopped in his tracks and craned his neck to scan the road, just as a sandbike spraying dust turned the corner and approached his home. A van followed a minute later. They were back! He couldn’t believe it. He rushed over to open the gate. Coso was already there. He had parked his sandbike a few feet away.

“”Where’s Lina? Did she figure out the mystery?” Navo asked, his voice trembling with excitement.

Coso’s grim expression frightened Navo. “Where is Lina?” he demanded.

Coso sighed. “It’s too difficult to explain,” he mumbled, pointing at Meko, who had just alighted the van.

Meko and the others surrounded Navo. “Lina made a huge discovery.” Meko ventured. “We would not have solved the mystery of Nohikora, if it were not for her bravery and persistence.”

“Why are you talking of her like that?” Tears gushed down Navo’s cheeks. “Why are you speaking of her in the past tense?” Navo sobbed.

“There is something we must show you.” Meko and Coso gently led Navo back to his house, and the others followed.

It was pure torture to watch, but Navo couldn’t peel himself away. He had to feel what she must have felt, yet he had no idea what she had felt. He just kept watching three days worth of footage, hoping to understand something.

The footage

It was a clear bright sunny morning. Lina smiled as she turned the camera on herself. “Even you can’t bring me down, today,” she declared, waving the standard issue camping breakfast bar she was eating at the camera. Her voice was cheerful. “Today, I’m going to learn the secret of the everywhere roots,” she chirped. She bubbled with excitement as she stepped out of her tent. The sight that greeted her, made her ecstatic. She pointed the camera at an endless carpet of purple blooms. “I knew they had to bloom. It’s so beautiful,” she gushed. Then she pointed the camera back at herself, as she walked among the gorgeous purple flowers. “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful, Navo?” she teased. After a minute or so, she placed the camera on the tripod and sat down amidst the blooms.

She had stopped talking, but she smiled radiantly as she looked into the distance. Navo looked at another part of the screen filming a patch of purple carpeted land at a distance. There too he saw people walking out of their tents and sitting down among the flowers just like Lina. Meko was watching with him. “That’s Pava and her two graduate students,” he remarked. “They all look just as blissful as Lina.” Meko sighed. It turned out that all the cameras showed similar footage.

Everyone on the team had sat down among the flowers and never moved, not to eat, not to drink water, nothing. Meko left after a couple of hours, but Navo could not tear himself away.

A day passed by and Ledo appeared on the camera. He seemed to be shaking Lina by her shoulder for a moment, but she did not respond, and a minute later, he too sat down next to her smiling blissfully.

Minutes and hours went by, but the people remained frozen. Their skin wrinkled as they were parched with thirst, yet they simply sat there smiling, seemingly oblivious to hunger, thirst and fear of death.

It was a terrifying sight. They sat there slowly dying, yet smiling. The eerie footage went on for three days, during which the blooms too slowly withered. They were a wrinkled and rotting when the camera battery ran out. The show was long over, but the smiling skeletal faces kept staring until the footage turned dark.

Meko had insisted that Coso remain to look after Navo. For the entire three days, Navo had refused to move, as if he too was under the influence of the flowers. He refused to eat or drink. He just stared at his beloved, as she wasted away in silence. Coso had to put Navo on intravenous glucose and saline just to keep him alive.

When the footage ended, Navo wept soundlessly for hours. Then he collapsed on the couch. He refused to speak.

The promise of …

Coso contacted Meko. “Navo needs to know all the details.” Coso insisted. “Only then can he begin to recover.”

So the next day, Meko arrived at Navo’s house with some notebooks. “You know, she named it. She had a feeling it was going to be a beautiful flower. So she named it Desert Bloom.” Meko showed Navo a page of Lina’s notes, where she had sketched the root system. There were drawings of flowers too. “I guess she was trying to picture her desert Bloom.” Meko smiled.

Navo grabbed the notes hungrily, and eagerly ran his fingers over the sketches, showing signs of life, for the first time since Meko had given him the footage.

“What did you learn?” Navo asked, his voice hoarse from not being used for several days.

“The Desert Bloom, as she named it, sprays some kind of chemical, which when inhaled puts people into to a blissful stupor, and they waste away, unable to move. It has been doing so, for longer than recorded history, as far as we can tell from her research.” Meko replied.

“Then, just before they wither away, the flowers spread their spores, which thrive on the soil made fertile by thousands of decaying bodies.” Novo deduced.

“Exactly. That’s why they have no leaves. All their nutrients come from the fertile soil. But the fertility is nearly depleted in a century, and then the cycle repeats. It is the life cycle of the plant. Fortunately, it hasn’t spread, because the desert that surrounds it for a hundred kilometeres in every direction, is too hostile for it to survive.”

“Every time we re-setteled Nohikora, we provided the thousands of bodies it needed to thrive for another life cycle. So abandoning it was the only way to fight it?” Navo was agitated. “Our superstition was right. The wisdom of our elders was right. We should have listened.” He lamented.

“By the time we reached, they were all dead, even Ledo. The danger had clearly passed when we arrived. We knew that from the historical records of traders, who had visited Nohikora soon after each of these tragedies. We reviewed enough of Lina’s and Pava’s footage to figure out what had happened, and then we packed up all the records, notes and equipment and drove straight to you.” Meko blurted out the distasteful information, eager to get it over with.

“She did figure it out, didn’t she?” Navo asked with tears in his eyes. “She solved the mystery?”

“Yes, I think it’s the last thing she figured out.” Meko lied, kindly. “And thanks to her research, we know exactly what happens there, and now we can write up a report and map out a plan for future generations to recover the land safely,” he added, honestly.

“Then she must have died happy, because that was all she wanted.” Navo consoled himself.

When Meko left, Navo made himself some mutton stew and millet porridge and sat at the dining table pretending that Lina would be home soon. For all her smarts, and creativity, Lina could never have imagined that such cunning could lie hidden in such beauty. Blessed with child like curiosity, she was naive, that way. It made her both immensely lovable and incredibly stubborn.

She put too much faith in knowledge and science, he fumed. Faith, he laughed at the thought. The very word had always made Lina cringe. She had always wanted proof. He was a scientist himself, but he knew that science had a long way to go before it uncovered all the mysteries of their world. The scientists always oversell their reach, he chafed. Knowledge was limited, and it was faith in science, that kept scientists going. Lina was a saint, who had dedicated her life to the pursuit of knowledge, and it brought her unadulterated joy. He wished he could be as devoted as she was, but he wasn’t a cynic, not a saint at the alter of science.

He recalled Lina’s last letter. She had promised to take a month off. He burst out laughing. A month off from work would drive Lina insane. But she had promised him a trip to the lake side resort in the Parisada oasis, and Lina had always kept her promises. So Navo packed a suitcase, applied for a week off, and left to fulfill his beloved wife’s last promise.