The Painter of Trees
ShortStory 4,258 words Recommended by 5 award/anthology sources
The human terraformers didn’t realize there was native intelligence until it was too late to save them. Now it’s just a question of what to do with the time that remains.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
Quasar links out; the story lives on Clarkesworld, where the author gets the click.