The Long Game [FICTOID]

Out among the Kuiper belt, where comets roam and dark planets lurk, proto-bacteria play 17-level quad-dimensional chess against a pine tree.

Now the story of how a pine tree managed to get from Yosemite out among the stars is a fascinating one but unfortunately not tied into our current narrative so forget it.*

And while pine trees do not possess brain tissue and nervous systems associated with terrestrial animals, they do play chess and they play it exceptionally well.

This particular game had been played close to ten million years and even the proto-bacteria thought the tree a worthy competitor.

“Your move,” the proto-bacteria said (well, not really “said” how can a monocellular organism “say” anything while lacking a mouth or vocal chords, much less in an absolute zero hard vacuum?).

“Vertical king’s pawn twelve-retrograde counter-rotation to queen’s centaur two-gamma,” the pine tree replied (the reply took over fifty thousand years, a breakneck pace for a chess game between a pine tree and proto-bacteria).

“Nice move,”

“Thank you,” the tree replied (it never hurts to be polite while playing chess with proto-bacteria; who knows what those wily little bastards can come up with).

“We just reached apogee,” said (same caveat) the proto-bacteria.

“That’s nice,” answered the tree, looking for a way to cheat on its next move.

“Don’t you have family back on the third planet?”

“Not anymore.  That world blew itself out into a charred husk millions of years ago.”

“Pity.  Humans could be so amusing.”

“Mate,” answered the pine tree.

© Buzz Dixon

*  Maybe some other time…