Rafael lashed out with a vicious backhand slash of the machete catching the main central vein of the tree frond. The blade was sharp, never having been used, and made a clean slice severing the frond. It fell to the ground at his feet. A viscous clear liquid dripped in thick stringy gobs down from the wounded end that remained attached to the tree, splatting on the ground. Rafael took four steps to the right and slashed a second frond. It fell the same way.

The ground beyond the fronds, was a tangled thicket of underbrush in the area neat the forest edge extending in about 20 feet. Plants with broad feather-like leaves all faced the edge where sunlight filtered in through the incomplete curtain formed by the hanging unsupported fronds. As the slashed ends had fallen away the smaller leaves of the plants behind them had all moved. Angling themselves directly toward the new opening, gathering as much light as they could from what was now the brightest and most direct source.

The drone over Rafael's head switched on a powerful beam of light aimed into the opening. The leaves shifted position once again to angle their broad flat surfaces toward that light, now brighter than the indirect sunlight. The leaves were various shades of red and green, some entirely red, some green, others a patterned mix of various shades of both colors.

One of the men from Rafael's team, Emilio, stepped forward. "Did you see that? It was like somebody just closed the curtains so we couldn't peek in the window." Another man further back chuckled.

The botanist, Kabil, smiled and stepped forward beside Emilio and Rafael. "No, it's a simple phototropic reaction the plants are simply reacting to maximize the amount of light they can absorb through the leaf surfaces."

Rafael spoke to reclaim the conversation. "I've seen plants grow toward the light over a period of hours, but that was fast, like an animal moving."

"Yes," Kabil replied, "The light likely triggered the opening or closing of some internal valve that changes the fluid pressure within the leaf stem causing it to reshape itself in such a way that the leaf faces the highest level of light that reaches it. Potentially a very efficient system."

"So, the curtains close automatically, without someone pulling them shut." Rafael concluded.

"Yes, exactly. A purely autonomic reaction."

"Dozer One, clear a path." Rafael ordered as he and the other two men stepped aside. The lead bulldozer moved forward, as the whirring of its electric motors picked up in intensity. The big metal blade came down to within two inches of the ground, an invisible shield extension jutted forward from the lower lip of the bulldozer blade. The shield extension was configured to slice through the vegetation at ground level, adjusting its position and angle for optimal cutting as the vehicle moved forward. This approach allowed the ground itself to remain largely undisturbed. Underneath the bulldozer, two heavy cylindrical barrels would roll over the ground, flattening and compacting it like a steamroller. The whole vehicle was only about four feet tall. It fit neatly through the opening Rafael had cut in the tree fronds.

As it advanced, the vegetation fell before it and was pushed to the sides, leaving a clear flat path in its wake as it rolled into the forest. The plants to either side reoriented their leaves toward the path and the main opening, shielding the rest of the forest from view, but as the dozer moved forward, the tall leaf-bearing vegetation thinned quickly, leaving more open space and a view to the interior. Rafael called the dozer to halt about thirty feet in. He looked back at the rest of the team.

"There's all kinds of sap coming from severed stems on the ground, not a drop of that gets more than ten feet outside the forest. When we leave, set the shields to repel anything they touch so it stays here, and doesn't hitch a ride on your feet. Everybody stay on the cleared path unless I say otherwise. Sample everything. We'll get duplicates, but that's ok, we don't know if there are different plants that look alike. The computers will sort out the results later. Go." He held a hand up to Emilio, "Stay with me as an extra set of eyes." Rafael motioned to another man, "Nima, you, too. Keep your eyes open for any animals moving toward our position. If you see anything, call it out."

Nima, whose broad shoulders suggested he might be an effective defensive wall against any attack, stepped forward beside the other two, and they led the way along the short path the dozer had cleared.

"Look at that!" Kabil was pointing at the edges of the cleared path near the opening. "The plants are already moving into the cleared space to take advantage of the light." They turned to look where he was pointing, the rustling sound they had attributed to the sound of a breeze blowing through the vegetation was revealed to be the sound of the plants bending and twisting to fill the gap, stealing the bounty of sunlight. They leaned out over the path, threatening to close the opening entirely.

"Stand back," Rafael ordered. "I'm going to use the drone to keep the opening clear. I want a clear exit path in case we need to leave in a hurry." The drone, hearing his words and being smart enough to interpret them into action, moved back toward the rear of the party and began neatly trimming any growth that extended into the original opening. After its initial pass with the lasers, it used it analytical powers to find the bases of any branches that might be able to bend and reach the opening and surgically cut them off at their bases. In less than a minute, there were none left that could reach the opening itself.

Instead, those branches just a little too far away crowded as far as they could toward the incoming stream of daylight oriented their leaves to soak up what energy they could. Steamy wisps of moisture rose from the severed plant stems on the path and trailed lazily out through opening into the dry helium-rich air outside the canopy's protective barrier.

Forty feet overhead the fully closed ceiling was only barely translucent, a small amount of light penetrating through the material of the fronds themselves. They were tightly interwoven with no gap, effectively sealing the roof.

Forward, away from the edge, the leaf-bearing vegetation thinned and was replaced by more thick and bulbous 'plants' that reminded the expedition team more of mushrooms or fungus than plants. A distinction based on Earth biome that might be more nuanced or completely meaningless here on Ri Ja. Even as the drone was occupied clearing the doorway, it projected a wide-angle light into the deep twilight darkness to the front and sides of the cleared path. The almost regular spacing of the tree trunks was the first thing to catch the eye. They reinforced the impression of being indoors, in a vast man-made building.

Kabil was the first to begin clipping and feeding samples into his hand-held analyzer. Using it to record images of the larger plant before inserting small samples into the open saucer shaped depression on the top of the device. Once the sample was there, the device would read it at the atomic level, recording the structure, chemical composition, and everything it could learn about the sample. It would cross-reference it to the larger plant. The specific location coordinates, atmosphere, time of day and circumstances of the collection. Then a cross-reference would be done against an incredibly vast database of alien biologies and chemistries, looking for compatibilities, similarities, and trying to infer whether it would be in any way useful commercially.

All this data would be instantly fed back to the labs in the main base where the AI and dedicated human specialists would go through the sorted results and apply different variables to the materials to see what might changed if it were cooked, dried, chilled, or treated in as many different ways as they could think of that might unlock some additional characteristics.

Meanwhile, Rafael and Emilio and Nima kept watch. They saw movement at the edges of the darkness, and small things scuttling nearby. But the drone emitted a directional hypersonic beam at anything whose path would take it to close to the human incursion into the forest, and for the most part this turned them away. Others required a more forceful redirection using a small electromagnetic field that pulled the atoms of the air into a much denser barrier in a very localized area, physically blocking the path with a tiny moveable wall that simply herded the little bugs and other creatures away from the humans.

Rafael ordered the bulldozer another thirty feet into the interior, expanding the area the humans could reach and offering them access to the interior plants that differed from those around the edge.

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