Once again, I am drawn into Gabrielle's world. I take off my shoes in the Hall of Trees, my toes feeling the grass carpet. On either side grow plants and flowers--ferns nearly as tall as I, tropical lilies white against dark green fronds, poinsettia plants with fiery leaves. I pass the many aisles, only half interested, noticing again the holes--the many holes spaced equally on the floor, holes once filled with trees.

Now there is only One. A bluegum eucalyptus, it stands at the path's end, its hundred-foot crown reaching toward our dome. Its clumps of thin-leaved branches sway slightly in the "wind" that breezes the Hall, its trunk mottled with peeling bark. Odd, to me it resembles a photograph I saw once in the Archives--a tall African dancer under a mask.

I pause in the tree's shelter, look up at the leaves. Each seems to dance a separate dance. Does each have its own piece of life? I pick up a newly-fallen leaf, break it, and smell the sap. How sweet for a tree without blossoms or seeds.

I bend down and press a blue button, and the Tree is enveloped by moisture. Tiny droplets of water drip from the lower boughs to my head and lashes. Another button--a brown one--rolls away the moss at the Tree's base, revealing plastiground, in which the Tree's roots wrap themselves.

"More vitamins for you?" I ask aloud, pressing the red button. A pink liquid streams toward the Tree's roots.

What good will it do? I wonder. You are dying. I feel like hitting the tree's indifferent trunk, shocking it to life.

I want more trees. Thousands of them. Time to visit the Archives again, to watch Gabrielle's world spring up around me in moving pictures that seem almost real.

I leave the Hall of Trees and walk next door to the Archives. I hardly notice the forty-storey building with its rooms divided into centuries for easy study. I pass the ancient times, the medieval times, the Renaissance. My only interest lies in the century of technology, Century Twenty.

As I step in, the room is bare: translucent walls, white carpet, a metal platform for standing. I climb on the platform and speak:

Time of study: late twentieth century

Person: my great-grandmother, Gabrielle Leigh.

I wait for the Uniprint System to enliven. Tired, I sit cross-legged on the platform, my hands on my knees, my head leaning back. I close my eyes. This room is a sanctuary, a place of rest and meditation--a place of prayer. I open my eyes as the Portal arch appears, glowing green, with green sparkles in its doorway.

Strange, it seems brighter today, as if more sparkles dance around the arch, sending shadows against the walls. I watch the shadows, mesmerized, sleepy. Is that shadow a hand? Startled, I snap my head around, my skin prickling my back. Was someone watching through the cracked door behind me, forgetting to remove his hand from the dooredge? The door closes softly, and I wonder if my imagination dreamed the hand. Maybe I just forgot to close the door all the way, anxious to visit Gabrielle's trees. Maybe a passing monitor noticed the door ajar and shut it just now. Maybe.

I forget the shadowy hand as pictures appear around me. I am about to enter the careful illusion of time past--a coordinated, three-dimensional, moving world of images far superior to those old-style motion pictures.

Over a hundred years ago, when my great-grandmother walked this planet, there were trees: great forests of pines and firs in springtime, their lacy boughs poised downward like dancers' fingers; cypress trees in swamplands--their trunks heavy with water like pregnant women; rain forests, with broad leaves and crowns so thick that from above they seemed one continual tapestry of woven green.

The System shows me these trees--and the eucalpytus groves, lean trunks peeling in shades of gray and pink, ribbons of thin, windblown leaves--bluish tint above, silver underneath, so careful of water, known for their healing sap. No wonder our Last Tree is a eucalyptus.

After the tree images, the comforting voice of my great-grandmother pervades the room, vocal music from a four-wall stereo. She speaks words from her journals, later published in a book every schoolchild must read:

"I was born in the shadow of the nuclear age, that giant mushroom feeding on our earth. The mushroom never formed globally--but it was there, hovering over us all with its silent threat. I preferred, instead, the smaller shadow of a California live oak tree that grew outside my window. I noticed it first when I was three and tall enough to lean over the windowsill. My eyes were too small to catch all fifty feet of bark and leaves. The tree managed somehow to shelter me from that other shadow that haunted my dreams, whose picture I had seen in my mother's book on World War II. . ."

I feel that connection to Gabrielle again--more than the love of trees which binds us, the same blood in our veins, the same sad passion to preserve. It's almost as if I become Gabrielle, as if the words she speaks are mine.

I lean my head forward. The images, taken from old-style videos and photographs, spring from the walls to spaces all around the room. I sit in the midst of them, reaching out a hand to touch the orange of a century-old sun above the white wood ranchhouse where Gabrielle spent her childhood. There, by the upstairs window, stands her oak tree, stretching wide its heavy-laden branches (the leaves a strange bluish-green). There her pastures, dry and yellow in summer, spread beneath the slate blue Cuyamaca Mountains.

There stands Gabrielle, in her open doorway. She is grown now--a little older than I, yet similar in her long-legged height (for hiking in the hills). In fact, we are very much alike: her hair is more blonde than mine, long; her face suntanned and delicate. Her eyes are blue, with flecks of green; her lips full for speaking, her chin dimpled at its point. One long-fingered hand rests on the doorpost, and the other waves--to me? I wave back, becoming utterly part of her world, reliving again her story of the trees.

I find myself in nineteen ninety-three, standing under the oak tree by Gabrielle's house. I know I am invisible and cannot speak. Still, I can almost touch the rugged bark my hand leans upon. Just six feet away stands Gabrielle, speaking into her tape recorder (which she used instead of paper) as she paces back and forth on the front lawn:

"I am nearly finished with my botany course at San Diego State. Evergreen is sending me to Oregon to investigate this Spotted Owl thing. They want me to write an article for their magazine. It looks like my English degree will come in handy this time. I wish I had taken kung fu. I don't relish the idea of running into an angry lumberjack. Much though I hate the cutting down of trees, I want to understand the lumber industry's point of view. I have the feeling this issue isn't as simple as Evergreen wants us to believe."

Gabrielle pauses and looks up at the mountains. "Everyday I see more pines turn brown on these mountains--from the drought and the beetles. It isn't just the lumberjacks who kill them. And the forest fires--thank God the one on Vulcan Mountain was contained before it spread to my own oak tree."

She walks over and stands just inches from me. She places her hand on the bark, just above mine. She wears no rings.

"Ah well," she continues, sitting down on a protruding root and crossing her legs. "I suppose I'll always have a tree to sit and think beneath. Ah, the smell of green . . . "

Gabrielle leans her head on the oak's trunk and closes her eyes. Her hand slides down along the bark, and I think I feel something as it passes through mine. Were we, for a moment, almost touching?

Gabrielle falls asleep for awhile. With a start, she opens her eyes, grabs her tape recorder, and leaps up. "Take care, my Treasure," she whispers, leaning to pat the exposed root. "I must study for my last final exam and pack for the trip. Mom and Dad shouldn't see me dozing again!"

Gabrielle sprints into the house and shuts the door behind her. I follow, but my hand cannot touch the brass handle. I wait for the scene to change, as it always does, from the ranchlands of San Diego County to the forests of Oregon. But this time the images hesitate a moment, as if waiting. I look back at the oak tree called Treasure. Then I hear someone call my name.

"Miranda Gregory, you are wanted in your Homeplex. Please report immediately."

Images of oak tree, ranchhouse, and mountains fade. The sparkly Portal disappears, and I realize the room's far wall glows red with Summoning. The soft, unobtrusive voice of the Summoner repeats her message. I stand up from the platform, rub my eyes, and head for the door. Before exiting, I turn and look at the slightly glowing walls, Gabrielle's ranch still fading into gray.

It was different this time. It felt more like a journey--as if the images and sounds were not just being beamed to me from camerachords set into the walls. I became part of the scene somehow, mixing my substance with Gabrielle's world. I noticed something I never heard before--the oak tree's name--though I know each word and picture by unmistaken memory. And Gabrielle--did she touch my hand? Did her flesh and bones brush me as she passed her fingers through mine?

What will happen next time I visit her? For the first time today, I smile.

"Treasure," I whisper, thinking of the tree's root.

After leaving the fifty-story Archives building, I glance up at the high, clear dome. A few wispy clouds gather beneath it, caught in a giant upturned bowl. Sometimes, when the Moisture System clicks on, rainbows appear.

I decide to take the transport rail, though usually I prefer walking since the sidewalks are made of grass. Funny how, though the Complex holds over a million people, neither the rail nor the sidewalks, parks, or buildings ever get crowded.

My fellow passengers and I strap ourselves into our plastiseats as the rail whooshes on its aircurrent, past stations and stops marked by yellow triangles. Our eyes focus on the plasticrystal, snake-like tube in whose belly we journey--much more gracefully than in old-style trains. We also look at each other, the windows, the ever-changing images of monitors and refreshment booths set in yellow center dividers. A robot tray offers me a selection of pastel-colored drinks. I pick a pink one and press my passcard into the payment slot. The middle-aged businessman next to me nearly brushes my arm as he reaches for a blue drink. He smiles at me, revealing blue-stained teeth under a mustache. I lower my eyes and stare at my hand, blushing at his attention. Is he watching me? I remember the shadowy hand on the Archive's wall. I glance sideways at this stranger, noticing he wears a baby blue worksuit, with long matching boots stretching to his knees.

Soon, the monitor reveals pictures of my Homeplex, which is near Old Balboa Park. As the rail slows, I disembark onto a motion platform which slows me to walking pace. I dare not glance back at the businessman, but I feel him staring at my back.

My Homeplex sits atop a hill that overlooks the old golf course and park. I love the sense of space it gives me, with canyons below and the large expanse of grass (which once, I hear, was dotted by oak and eucalyptus trees). Even though land is limited (especially for agriculture), the General Council voted to leave this space untouched so citizens could walk on it or stare, as I do now. The Early Twentieth-Century towers of Balboa Park still stand, carved into animal and shell shapes, holding lights and bells. Inside these towers (which used to be museums) are schools, since the Archives holds all our old things.

I pause at the end of the sidewalk, by two white posts I call "The Gateway," and wish we had more such vistas in Complex California Three. What was old San Diego City like? I've seen pictures of it before the dome--built on hundreds of canyons, next to a bay and the ocean. Because of the difficulties in placing the dome, which had to be dug deep into the earth's foundation, salt water was cut off from us. I can only imagine what it must have been to stand here over a hundred years ago and see the skyscrapers of downtown, the peninsula of Point Loma, the blue bridge curving over San Diego Bay toward Coronado Island, and the Pacific Ocean beyond. I wish I could walk the few miles toward beachland, sift sand through my fingers, soak myself with ocean waves.

Set among dozens of other geometrical, pastel-colored units in tiers thirty stories high, is my home. A light lime green (luckily on Level One), it looks much like the others--except for the many plants by the front door and windows. Whiffer greets me at the entrance, his gold and white body draped like a living doormat over the threshold.

"Silly boy," I say, stooping to pat his white nose, which breathes and purrs noisily. The black strips on his face crinkle with joy. Open pops his large gold eyes. He yawns, his teeth huge for a moment. He stands, rubs his head against my waist, and follows me--sniffing loudly--into the Homeplex, graceful on his padded paws. Wiffer is a cougar. His ancestors, untamed, once roamed the Cuyamaca Mountains, where Gabrielle lived. Now we contain the wild animals in Complexes--for their preservation, since so little oxygen remains outside. I wonder sometimes, as I watch him behave like an oversized housecat, if he misses the life of his ancestors--the savage freedom he has never known.

I have another "pet"--a bird. In our courtyard that forms the center of our Homeplex live plants of sub-tropical varieties (ferns, lilies, elephant ear fronds). In one corner, in his large iron cage, perches Raucous--our black-and-white Acorn Woodpecker. I brush past him. He hops up from his plastiwood log to grasp the bars with his feet. He sticks out his beak and feather-tipped tongue, looking for treats. I stroke his red-capped head and say, "Not now. Maybe I'll bring you crumbs after I see Mother."

Raucous cocks his head to one side as if disappointed I won't give him a treasure to hide in a hole. To emphasize this, he begins pecking furiously at a new spot in the plastiwood. I wonder if he would notice the difference in a real log of wood--a luxury seen mostly in museums, far too expensive for a woodpecker.

"It's Mock Raspberry today," Mother announces as I drape my jacket on a chair and wash my hands. She doesn't seem angry at having to Summon me to help her cook. "I wish we had the real thing. Did I tell you that I tasted one of the last jars of real raspberries when I was a little girl?"

"Yes, Mother," I smile, joining her at the wide plastimold table where the rolled-out tortes are spread. "And you mentioned tasting one of the last jars of strawberry, apple, lemon, chocolate--lucky you. Do our substitutes resemble at all the real thing?"

Mother wipes her forehead with the palm of her hand, only managing to spread the streak of white Mock flour. Her hair is still honey-red in color, like mine--but curlier, wilder, let free to drape against her shoulders and neck. She wears bright-colored skirts and scarves, and feathers laced around her ears. I call her a poet when she looks like that--though she is also a logical, respected scientist like most of my relatives and friends.

"No, I don't think the nutripaste we manufacture in pools of recycled water beneath the Complex comes close to the joy and purity of real food. Pass me that can of Mock sugar--I think this mess needs more. I wish you could taste real lemon, Miranda. It leaves a pucker in your mouth that cannot be compared. When mixed with sugar, it becomes both tart and sweet--a true mystery of the universe when baked with egg whites in a pie. Your grandmother Julia baked me one, before she died in the Chemical Wars. I shall never forget that morning she served it to me, fresh from her last lemon tree. You wouldn't believe the smell . . . "

"I'd rather taste chocolate cake--and coffee, with real sugar and cream," I announce.

Mother seems lost in the past again. We are both so connected to it.

"How were the Archives today?" she asks, her face no longer smiling. "You've been going through Gabrielle's tapes again, haven't you?"

Her question makes me feel tingly, as if something strange is about to happen, and we both instinctively know it.

"It was different today. The images seemed . . . more real. Once, I swear, Gabrielle almost touched me, her fingers like butterflies flying through mine." I don't mention the hand shadow--no need to alarm her, especially if it was just my imagination.

Mother reaches across the table and cups her hand over mine. "Did she say anything new?"

I pause, remembering. "She called her oak tree Treasure. I never heard that name before--it made the whole scene new."

"Then it's time I showed you something." Mother gets up and leaves the room. When she returns she places a plastiguard-covered object in front of me and sits down at the table. I remove the thin covering and whisper, "A book. Made of real paper and leather! This must be priceless! Where did you get it?"

"I've kept it for years. My mother, Julia, saved it for me. It belonged to Gabrielle. Open it."

I touch the black textured cover, tracing the gold letters HOLY BIBLE with my forefinger. The book smells musty. I open it and flip through the first thin pages, to the "Register of Births."

"Look how intact the paper is, after more than a hundred years!" I exclaim.

"Read the names in the Register," Mother suggests.

My eyes glance down the list, which starts with Gabrielle's parents, Richard and Cheryl Leigh. Gabrielle Ruth Leigh follows, born November 1, 1968. Then comes Julia Ann McAffee, born September 23, 1995. Next, Mother's name--Kate Mary Jones, born December 30, 2015. My name, last on the list, reads Miranda Gabrielle Gregory, born March 20, 2086. For a moment I think nothing of the list. Then I realize that all the names are written in a handwriting I recognize--Gabrielle's.

"My God--how did she know?" I gasp, searching my Mother's eyes for clues. She does not answer. "Notice the last two dates," she points out instead.

I read them again, paying extra attention to the year 2015. "But this is 2103, Mother. You aren't eighty-eight years old, are you? I thought you were forty! You didn't have me when you were 71!"

"I am forty." Mother stands and walks across the room, staring at a few photographs on the wall. "I was put to sleep, Miranda, like many other orphans after the Chemical Wars. My parents, travelling in San Francisco when the first war started, were killed. I was left, a five-year-old with no one to take care of me. Those turbulent years made much of the world contaminated, so people built the domes. Millions of people died. Compared to most cities, San Diego was more or less spared--about half of the residents survived. When our dome was finally finished, I turned ten. By then only a third of the people remained. The builders realized there wasn't enough food left to support a large population. So half the people who remained were put into cryogenic freeze, especially children. Only 50% of those survived to the year 2073, when we were awakened. I was still only ten years old, though my body had 'slept' for nearly fifty years." Mother looks at me and steps forward, holding out her hand. "I was one of the lucky ones."

"I never knew. It must have been awful--losing your parents, the chaos of a city trying to survive, waking up in a strange world where you recognized no one." I clench Mother's hand, watching a shadow invade her eyes.

"I adjusted. My adopted parents loved me."

"Then how was this Bible--those photographs, my sock monkey, and those other things you treasure--how were they saved for you?"

"The Caretakers sealed a few belongings in a box for many of us sleepers--Treasure Chests, they called those boxes, ties to our past."

I hardly know what to think of Mother's story.

"Well, you're in pretty good shape for someone born in 2015," I tell her. We giggle together, momentarily.

"Look through the rest of the Bible," Mother encourages me, growing serious again. I sit and flip through the pages until I find objects which have been pressed between them.

"What's this?" I ask, holding up a five-pointed thing. Mother sits beside me.

"A maple leaf. See how red it still is; it was plucked in the autumn. And that smaller thing with the winged tip is an elm seed."

"A seed!" I raise the delicate object, which is no more than a skeleton of what once was alive. "Too bad we can't plant it."

"Gabrielle saved those leaves and seeds for you," Mother tells me. I flip to the middle of the Bible, where an oak leaf rests, and read part of the first Psalm:

And he shall be like a tree planted

by rivers of water,

that bringeth forth his fruit in his season;

his leaf also shall not wither;

and whatever he doeth shall prosper.

"Hmmm," I murmur, picking up the oak leaf. Mother watches me silently. I turn to the very end of the book which has a flap holding an envelope. Mother reaches over, picks up the envelope, and puts it in her pocket.

"What's that?" I ask. "It looked very old."

"Something of mine. Oh! I'd better put this book away and get back to baking. The Mock flour shouldn't wait so long, or it may become flat!"

I stare at Mother and the envelope peeking out from her pocket, but say nothing.

We become absorbed in the task of making dessert for tonight's Gathering. Five dozen tortes!

All five trays bake simultaneously in the Cooker. We prefer to do it the longer, old-fashioned way, which doesn't waste energy because all our power comes from stored sunlight. We sit down at the white table and share a cup of "tea."

"The brew seems stronger today," I observe.

"Yes. I added some dead leaves the China plant decided to divest last night."

We giggle together. Using any plant or animal parts for consumption or manufacturing is stricktly forbidden, since we have little room for agriculture. Any food-enhancing animals like chickens and cows are kept merely to protect the species. But some scientists lucky enough for permits to grow plants in their homes often harvest the cast-off sections (only in small amounts--and never the rare fruit or seeds).

"Are you going to serve the tea tonight?" I ask Mother.

"Maybe," she replies, placing her china cup back on its saucer (a rare antique, hand-painted with apples), "if your Father doesn't object."

A sound jolts the room divider, and Father, who manages to hear whenever his name is spoken, enters the room.

"Object to what?" he asks, throwing his jacket on the same chair as mine. "How about I get one of those kisses, Miri," he adds, and I skip over to his big bear hug and peck him on his ear. He pours himself a cup of tea, and I watch as his large hand grips the delicate teacup handle.

"The tea, Cornelius," Mother replies, and we two giggle. Poor Father senses our frequent conspiracies, yet manages to be amused. He raises one bushy black eyebrow and scratches his beard.

"I see nothing wrong with it. By all means, serve it. The China plant won't miss a few dead leaves."

Mother stands up and embraces Father--passionately, I must add. His athletic, broad-shouldered frame makes Mother seem shorter and thinner than she is (one reason she loves him). He rakes his fingers through her hair as if expecting to find treasures hidden there. I run a hand down my carefully braided hair and wonder if I'll ever let it wild like Mother's. Maybe I'll find a man who likes it that way. . .

"Father," I say just after his embrace with Mother ends. "Mother told me--about her, well, about her heritage, her parents, her . . . "

"Good. That's good," he replies, smiling. He looks at Mother and leans forward, kissing her on the lips. "It's been on her mind to tell you since you were just a child. I'm glad you finally know."

"Me too, Daddy," I say, hugging him and tickling his bearded chin.

My family, in many ways, is "traditional" in the Twentieth-Century use of that word. Mother enjoys "feminine" tasks like cooking, sewing, and having babies (though Complex Law allowed her only one). Father enjoys "masculine" tasks like playing hoverball with his perks (male friends), working late hours at the Lab, and trying sometimes to tell Mother what to do (which seldom works). Yet they respect each other as equals (a premise still not always accepted these days). They are both well-known scientists in the field of botany, though Mother chooses to work flex-time. And they both, like me, I suppose, like to write and tell stories.

The people of our Gathering are that way too. A bit idealistic, perhaps--but determined to use their knowledge, passion, and energy to make the world wild once more.

"Well, Cornelius, I see your daughter is doing well as Keeper of the Tree," Professor Berstein observes from his cushiony corner chair. He's an older man, who wears a sight-enhancing lensband, temple to temple.

"Yes," Father replies. "But she wishes she could make the Tree want to live. It'll never reproduce, you know."

"I know," the old man says, lowering his face so his lensband gleams rainbow-colored in the lamplight. "How do you feel about that, my dear?"

I never knew my grandparents. They were all killed in the Chemical Wars. But if I could choose a substitute, it would be Professor Berstein.

"It makes me sad. I think the time is short," I pause, glancing down at my folded hands and then up at the professor. "Yet somehow I feel there is an answer. Where?" Father leans toward me. "I visited the Archives again today. It was really weird. Gabrielle seemed different. The images stayed longer than usual, and I got the feeling she was trying to tell me something." I bend forward in my chair after speaking, trying to see the professor's reaction.

"Ah," he sighs, raising his face toward me. His eyes, nearly blind behind the lensband, strain to see. "Maybe Gabrielle could help us now. You know how she tried to save the trees."

"Yes--on one tape, I heard Gabrielle say people believed trees would remain as plentiful as Carrier Pidgeons once were. They planted millions of trees each year back then--nurseries with acres full of saplings, organizations like TreePeople and Arbor Day Foundation helping citizens participate," I say.

"No one wanted to hear the bad news, how fragile the trees really were, or how the Chemicals would come," states Marge, a female grad student with boney hands, short black hair, and a thin, Oriental face. She is not much older than I. "You know, Gabrielle's last journals were never found--the ones she wrote after the birth of her daughter Julia. Even if the journals exist, which I doubt, there could not be many. Gabrielle vanished before Julia was two."

"A lot can be written in two years," the professor observes. "Not when you're breastfeeding, lullabying, and changing diapers," Mother interjects with a grin. I know she is only joking--Mother's best research paper was composed when I was six months old.

"You breast fed?" Marge asks, glancing down at her own rather flat chest, amazed that a woman would still choose the old-fashioned way.

"There's nothing like real milk," Mother replies. I notice Father smile and glance at her still shapely, full figure.

The Gathering choruses a laugh--all but Marge. With a blush, I'm thankful I'm very much like my Mother.

"Do you believe the last journals will ever be found?" I ask the professor after everyone quiets down again. I am unaware how vividly my face glares with emotion, until I glimpse my flushed cheeks and glittering eyes in the mirror across the room.

"Anything is possible, Miranda, if you do not close your mind."

I think about the professor's words.

"I agree," says Michael (another grad student), also noticing my face and leaning toward me. His expression jumps at me in the mirror. I have never heard his voice before. It's deep and musical--like an old bass viola made of real wood. He is new to the group (like Marge), and has been--until now--merely an observer. "You should find what is lost, Miranda," he continues, turning my way. His face is pleasant--tanned, bearded, punctuated by brown eyes and matching hair. I remember that he works with my father.

"How?" I ask him, pressing my fintertips together as if in prayer.

"Go back to the Archives. See if you can learn anything new. Gabrielle may have left clues in her journals and photographs."

I stare in silence, my mind distracted by Michael's curious stare.

"You'll be wasting your time," Marge comments helpfully. "The Last Tree is going to die--even you know that, Miranda."

Michael says nothing to refute Marge's pessimism. But his eyelashes brush against his cheeks as he blinks, easing my own doubts. Professor Berstein's lensband gleams with hopeful colors. Mother and Father, holding hands and leaning against each other, smile.

Mother says my face is usually too serious. But tonight I return their smile, anticipating my next visit to Gabrielle. I believe more tapes exist, and I intend to find them.

Mother motions for me to help her distribute the refreshments. Our guests laugh and talk informally among themselves as they nibble on Mock Raspberry tortes and sip China-plant tea.

"You can visit the Archives first thing in the morning if you like," Father suggests as I refill his cup.

"But what about helping you in the Lab?" I wonder, catching Father's blue-eyed wink.

"Michael has volunteered to take your place tomorrow."

"Oh."

Father grins.

I glance over at the young man I only barely noticed before tonight. He holds one of Mother's painted teacups in his large right hand and gestures with the left one as he converses with the professor.

"That was nice of him," I comment, absently tugging at the plasticomb which holds up my hair.

"Yes," Father replies with a wink.

And so I find myself in Gabrielle's world once more. The scene has switched to Oregon, to the great evergreen forests which once guarded the Pacific Northwest. We are in an "old-growth" forest, following a logger's road through a mountain pass. On either side trees reach above us like giant soldiers folding their limbs toward each other. I see clearly the varieties: Ponderosa Pine, Sugar Pine, Hemlock, Redwood, Cedar, Douglas Fir. The Douglas Firs are the old giants of the forest--the very best for lumber. I watch from behind a tree as Gabrielle walks toward one, tape recorder in hand:

"I have never seen anything like this. Such trees! How could anyone cut down something so beautiful and dignified and solid--something that grew in the same spot for over a thousand years?"

I try to answer Gabrielle's question, growing temporary lumberjack eyes. In Gabrielle's time an average tree was worth (in the rough, fresh off a logger's truck) about four thousand dollars--enough to feed a family for a year. In my time a small log for Raucous the woodpecker would cost a fortune in diamonds or gold.

Gabrielle continues, "Well, I will try not to condemn the loggers before I get their side." She pauses to pick up a pine cone, which pricks her finger with its sharp point. She puts her finger in her mouth, then says, "I know, if our trees disappear, it will be for a variety of complicated reasons--not just because we cut them down."

At the end of the muddy road lies a clear-cut section. Even though I have seen it before, I gasp again at sight of the hillside which reminds me of an unevenly-shaved head. Limbs from cut trees litter the ground like gnawed-off bones. The undergrowth (an entire ecosystem of layered plants, insects, birds, animals) is gone. Twigs and needles mingle with the mud.

"They're supposed to replant this section," Gabrielle speaks. "I hear the survival rate of saplings is not as good as it should be, but they are now planting five trees for every one they cut down. That's good. Maybe we could make trees a renewable resource, like a farmer plants crops--if we managed them right."

We continue walking, to a place where "felling" is in progress. Chainsaws screech through wood, a man shouts, a huge pine thrashes through other trees and impacts the ground.

"I'll try to interview a logger now, if I can find one who isn't too busy. I hope he won't mind talking to me, since I haven't come here to count Spotted Owls or sit in a tree."

I think a logger would not mind talking to Gabrielle at any time, since she is young and pretty. Her jeans and red plaid shirt do not hide her feminine curves. Her thick hair hangs freely down her back.

Someone else has been watching her. He leaves his post by a logging truck and saunters near. He is a muscular man, built like an athlete. He brushes off the front of his jeans, his eyes fixed on Gabrielle in both admiration and distrust. Strange--for a moment I thought he glanced at me.

"May I help you?" he asks, pulling off his cap to reveal curly red hair.

"I was hoping I could interview you," Gabrielle replies, her hands clutched behind her waist, the recorder still on. "I'm doing an article about the Spotted Owl issue, and how passing laws to protect their habitat affects the timber industry. I'd like to hear your side of the story."

The lumberjack rubs his freckly chin. His green eyes narrow under their bushy red brows.

"You aren't a damn environmentalist, are you?" he asks. I can understand his defensiveness. He stands to loose his livelihood.

"Yes," Gabrielle states directly (she would not be one to deny it), "but I'm trying to keep an open mind. You're not going to try and shut it before I get started, are you?"

Though I know the story, I wonder, as I stare at the man's face, if he will shout at Gabrielle to leave or suggest a dinner date to discuss the issue. The latter impulse wins over his anger, and he smiles, cocking his head back slightly toward the dusky light filtering from the treetops.

"This is not the place, lady. You know, you're actually not supposed to be here. Trees are being felled all around us as we speak. You've no idea what we have to pay in insurance. Tell you what, I'll meet you in the Pine Hill Inn tonight, around 9 o'clock, and we'll discuss those owls of yours over dinner."

"You mean, our owls, don't you?"

The man half smiles, not sure how to respond. Finally, he leads her toward an area away from the cutting and repeats, "Nine o'clock."

I walk slowly, almost without thinking, to the pine tree where the logger now leans. I glance at Gabrielle, silhoutted against the wide brown trunk of a Douglas Fir. I know she will accept the logger's offer--and all that will come about because of her decision. Yet she seems to hesitate longer than usual, twirling the ends of her hair with two long fingers; her tape recorder, still running, hides in her open backpack.

"All right," she says finally, walking toward the red-haired man with me close behind. So large he seems next to her, in his brown plaid shirt and worn jeans (even I am taller than Gabrielle). "I'll be there." She grins at those words. He extends his hand.

"Deal," he promises. Gabrielle reaches toward him, her white wrist glowing against the mossy bark of the pine tree, her fingers stretched. The two people grasp hands, firmly, and in that brief second I reach out and place my own hand on theirs and actually feel the pressure of their touch. Did they feel mine? They seem not to notice.

The images fade suddenly, and I am left in darkness, still sensing the touch of Twentieth-Century hands. My fingers seem to tingle as if lightly shocked. I doubt if anyone in the Archives experienced this before.