Os créditos vão para Daphne B por seu comentário acima, ao identificar isso, mas, depois de ler essa história, concordo que parece muito com a de Ursula K. LeGuin "Mais vasto que impérios e mais lento"(1971). (Observe que, se você tem certeza de que sua história é dos 1960s, a novela de Richard McKenna," Hunter, Come Home ", como proposta em outra resposta, é mais adequada; foi publicada pela primeira vez no 1963.)
Uma equipe do "Extreme Survey", composta por voluntários, vai para um planeta inexplorado conhecido como World 4470 em um navio chamado Goma. O mundo 4470 é incomum, pois contém apenas vida de tipo vegetal:
The biologist's hunch proved correct. When they began field analyses
they found no animals even among the microbiota. Nobody here ate
anybody else. All life-forms were photosynthesizing or saprophagous,
living off light or death, not off life. Plants: infinite plants, not
one species known to the visitors from the house of Man. Infinite
shades and intensities of green, violet, purple, brown, red. Infinite
silences.
Um dos membros da equipe de pesquisa é um não-telepata ("empático") com aparência albina, que por natureza não se dá bem com os outros:
She stopped. Osden had come into the main cabin.
He looked flayed. His skin was unnaturally white and thing, showing
the channels of his blood like a faded road map in red and blue. His
Adam's apple, the muscles that circled his mouth, the bones and
ligaments of his wrists and hands, all stood out distinctly as if
displayed for an anatomy lesson. His hair was pale rust, like
long-dried blood. He had eyebrows and lashes, but they were visible
only in certain lights; what one saw was the bones of the eye sockets,
the veining of the lids, and the colorless eyes. They were not red
eyes, for he was not really an albino, but they were not blue or grey;
colors had cancelled out in Osden's eyes, leaving a cold water-like
clarity, infinitely penetrable. His face lacked expression, like an
anatomical drawing, or a skinned face.
"I agree," he said in a high, harsh tenor, "that even autistic
withdrawal might be preferable to the smog of cheap secondhand
emotions with which you people surround me. What are you sweating hate
for now, Porlock? Can't stand the sight of me?..."
Mais tarde, é revelado que essa animosidade se deve a um ciclo de feedback positivo de emoção negativa que começa sempre que alguém o encontra pela primeira vez.
Todos na equipe, mas principalmente Osden, começam a sentir um medo intenso sempre que estão na floresta. Osden se separa do resto da equipe para minimizar o atrito, mas é atacado por alguma coisa (outro membro da equipe, ao que parece) e volta à base para se recuperar. Ele explica que acha que o medo vem da própria floresta:
"There is something." He closed his mouth, the muscles of his lips
stood out rigid.
"Something sentient?"
"A sentience."
"In the forest?"
He nodded.
[AVISO: PARE DE LER AGORA, SE NÃO QUISER SPOILERS!]
É teorizado que toda a floresta pode ser um ser mentalmente:
"What about those root-nodes that we've been puzzling about for twenty
days -- eh?"
"What about them?"
"They are, indubitably, connections. Connections among the trees.
Right? Now let's just suppose, most improbably, that you knew nothing
of animal brain-structure. And you were given one axon, or one
detached glial cell, to examine. Would you be likely to discover what
it was? Would you see that the cell was capable of sentience?"
"No. Because it isn't. A single cell is capable of mechanical response
to stimulus. No more. Are you hypothesizing that individual
arboriformes are 'cells' in a kind of brain, Mannon?"
O grupo muda seu acampamento para outra parte do planeta. O sentimento de medo também está presente. Osden especula que o planeta inteiro está reagindo à consciência pela primeira vez de algo de outros do que ele próprio. Ele quer tentar se comunicar com ele de alguma forma:
"If I gave into it," Osden mused, "could I communicate?"
"By 'give in,'" Mannon said in a rapid, nervous voice, "I assume that
you mean, stop sending back the empathic information which you receive
from the plant-entity: stop rejecting the fear, and absorb it. That
will either kill you at once, or drive you back into total
psychological withdrawal, autism."
Alguns membros da equipe levam Osden para as profundezas da floresta novamente, onde são superados pelo medo e começam a entrar em pânico. Osden sai sozinho e parece ter sucesso:
Osden moved suddenly and quietly, swinging out of the doorway, down
into the dark. He was gone.
I am coming! said a great voice that made no sound.
Tomiko screamed. Harfax coughed; he seemed to be trying to stand up,
but did not do so.
Tomiko drew in upon herself, all centered on the blind eye in her
belly, in the center of her being; and outside that there was nothing
but the fear.
It ceased.
Osden não retorna, mas parece estar se comunicando através do controle do corpo de um membro da equipe:
The mouth opened and spoke. "All well," it said.
"Osden --"
"All well," said the soft voice from Eskwana's mouth.
"Where are you?"
Silence.
"Come back."
A wind was rising. "I'll stay here," the soft voice said.
O restante dos membros da equipe é forçado a sair, mas depois eles retornam. Eles não encontram ele ou seu corpo. Está implícito que ele fundiu sua consciência com a das plantas e acha preferível ser vasto e sozinho, em vez de constantemente exposto a emoções humanas negativas.