He shrugged. “Still, what can we do? If it ain’t here, it ain’t here,” he conceded. He was about to head for the door when a thought struck him. “Unless…”
A similar thought struck Mech at almost the exact same moment. They locked eyes for just a second, then both leaned back and looked up to the ceiling.
For a while, the only sound was the faint moist click of Cal swallowing.
After a while, he quietly cleared his throat.
“That does not look like its picture,” he whispered.
“No,” Mech agreed.
“We are not getting that back to the ship.”
“No,” Mech agreed.
“We should probably go.”
“Yeah,” Mech agreed. “We should probably go.”
They backed toward the door, eyes locked on the enormous mass of dark green foliage that covered the ceiling, its leaves shifting and trembling as if alive.
At the heart of the greenery was a bright yellow flower. Its petals were splayed out in a bell-shape, each one as long as Mech was tall and ragged along the edges like the teeth of a saw.
Concerning as this was, though, the most troubling thing was unquestionably the tongue. It looked not unlike a human tongue, but stretched out so it was much longer than it was wide. The way it was curled up made it hard to guess the length, but Cal estimated its size to be more than long enough to reach him, and that was the main thing.
“Just wait until I talk to Kevin,” Cal said. “That guy is going to get a piece of my—”
The plant swallowed him.
One moment, he was backing toward the door, the next his visor was full of tongue, his feet were lifting off the floor, and Cal was completely cocooned in a big man-eating flower.
Six
Loren sat straight in her chair, peering across the gulf of space between the Untitled and the other ship. Cal and Mech had been gone for a while now. She’d watched them drift across the gap—Mech propelled by his foot rockets, Cal dragged along behind him by one leg—and then make their way inside via one of the ship’s airlocks.
That had been twenty minutes ago. Since then, there had been no developments. Well, none beyond Miz making some disparaging remarks about Loren’s flying, then leaving the bridge with Tyrra in tow.
“Kevin, can you try contacting Cal and Mech?” Loren asked.
“I have attempted to make contact a number of times now, ma’am,” said Kevin. “As I’ve explained on several occasions over the course of the last few minutes, there is a significant amount of interference blocking our signals. Were we to have a functioning warp disk, then we may be able to raise the masters, but as it stands they can’t hear us and we can’t hear them. Scans, however, suggest they’re both still alive. Probably.”
Loren looked to the ceiling. “What do you mean ‘probably’?” she demanded.
“The same subspace interference that is disrupting communications is making it difficult to get an exact pinpoint on their whereabouts and condition, ma’am,” Kevin said. “But, if it’s any consolation, I’m almost eighty percent sure that they’re still on the ship, and seventy percent certain that neither of them are dead yet.”
“Yet? What do you mean not dead yet?”
“Well, ma’am. It comes to us all,” said Kevin. “There’s no point denying it. But, I’m quietly confident that it won’t come to any of us today.”
“Great,” Loren sighed. “That’s encouraging. Can you try contacting them again? Just in case?”
“And how do you propose I do that, ma’am?” asked Kevin, his voice suggesting he was coming dangerously close to getting a bit snippy. This was unlike him, but Mistress Loren was really starting to wear his patience thin. “We’ve already established that standard communications channels are disrupted. What would you like me to do? Shout, perhaps? Wave a flag?”
“Just try, Kevin,” Loren ordered.
“Very good, ma’am,” Kevin replied. “I shall resume my attempts to contact them.”
“Thank you.”
“Utterly futile as they may be.”
Loren shot the ceiling a warning look, then went back to studying the ship. Back at the Academy, she’d been an expert on the Zertex fleet, able to answer any question that anyone might ask about its various vessels, no matter how pointless and mundane.
She could tell you how many crew manned the B-MUS science exploration ships (four thousand three hundred and eighty), how many torpedoes were carried by a T-18 Hammerhead as standard (originally sixteen, eighteen after the upgrade), and how long it took to run halfway across the observation deck of a HR50 Sunchaser when on fire (twenty-seven-point-four seconds. No one had ever made it more than halfway).
She could list all the weapons, braking distances, manual override codes, and shield phase rates of every ship in the Zertex fleet, and plenty more besides. But the bloated bathtub gradually rotating ahead of them was a new one on her.
As she watched it, Loren began to have doubts about the relocation plan. What if everything was different out here? What if they couldn’t find a way to fit in?
She snorted quietly.
Yeah. Since when had they ever fit in?
“No response, ma’am,” Kevin said. “As expected.”
“Thanks for trying, Kevin,” said Loren. She puffed out her cheeks and lowered her gaze a fraction until it met Splurt’s. He was sitting on her console, staring back at her. “What do you think, Splurt? Cal OK?”
Splurt rippled faintly. Loren had no idea what the movement represented, but she didn’t get the impression the little guy was overly concerned.
“Yeah. I’m sure they’ll both be fine,” she said. “It’s an empty ship. Surely even Cal couldn’t get into trouble on an empty ship?”
Splurt gave a shudder. Loren didn’t need to be fluent in his wobbly movements to understand what he meant.
“Yeah, you’re right,” she sighed. “That was a stupid thing to say.”
Mech stood in the center of the room, surrounded by bodies and gazing up at the quivering yellow flower suspended from the ceiling above him. His arms—both raised, cannons primed—suggested he was ready for action. His face, on the other hand, said he was trying hard not to laugh.
“Mech! Mech, are you out there?” called Cal. His voice was doubly muffled by the helmet and the petals, and the shrill desperation of it brought great heaves of merriment that shook Mech’s shoulders.
“Yeah, I’m out here,” Mech replied, composing himself as best he could.
There was a moment of silence. Mech had just started to wonder if Cal was OK when his voice came again.
“I’m in a big plant!”
“I can see that you’re in a big plant,” said Mech. “I watched you go inside the big plant.”
“Well… can you make it so I’m not in a big plant?” Cal asked.
“I guess I could shoot it,” Mech suggested.
“What? No! You might shoot me!” Cal yelped. “You have to—Oh God! Oh God! It’s trying to tongue its way inside my suit!”
Mech’s whole body clanked with laughter.
“Fonk off! Get out of there, you slimy bamston!” Cal warned, as the flower head shook and the petals bulged. “Mech! A little help here.”
“I can’t reach,” Mech said, half-heartedly stretching toward the plant. If he put some effort in, he almost certainly could’ve reached, but this was too entertaining an opportunity to just bring to an end like that.
“Oh, great! So, what do I do?” Cal demanded.
“It’s a flower,” Mech replied. “Can’t you just kick your way out?”
There was a pause while Cal considered this. “OK. Yeah. That actually makes sense. It’s a flower. I can kick my way out of a damn flower, right?”
“I would hope so,” Mech said. “You know, on account of you being a grown man, and it being a flower.”
“No, you’re right. I panicked, that all. I just panicked,” Cal said. “Hold on, I’ll be right there.”
There was a grunt from inside the flower head. A foot emerged through the gap between two petals and got completely wedged. Inside, Cal tried unsuccessfully to pull it back in.
“No. No, that’s now completely stuck.” Cal sighed. “Great. Any other bright ideas?”
“What about the tongue?” Mech asked.
“What about it?” came the reply.
“Is it still there?”
“Well, of course it’s still fonking here. Where else would it be? You think it fell off? It’s currently licking my visor like it’s a lollipop.”
“Aw man, I’d like to see that,” Mech mumbled.
“What was that?” Cal hollered. “I can’t hear you, because I’m still in this big plant.” He groaned. “This is all Kevin’s fault. He and I are going to have words when I get back.”
“If you get back,” Mech corrected. “We may not be able to get you out.”
“You’d fonking better get me out!” Cal warned. “What about the tongue? What were you going to say?”
“Huh? Oh, I was going to say you should try pulling on it.”
“Pulling on it? Why the hell would I pull on it?”
“I just think if you pull it, it’ll let you go.”
“And what makes you think that, Mech? Hmm? You’re suddenly an expert on these things?”
“If you pulled my tongue, I’d spit you out,” Mech said.
There was a lengthy pause.
“I don’t even know where to start with any of that,” Cal replied. “Do you even have a tongue?”
“Just pull the damn tongue,” Mech barked.
Inside the petal cocoon, Cal contemplated this. “Fine. Fine. I’ll pull the tongue. Here I go. Pulling the tongue… now. Wait. No. Damn this thing is hard to get a hold of. Pulling the tongue… now.”
Cal pulled.
Nothing happened.
“Hold on, hold on. That was my other arm,” he said. “It’s dark in here, and I can’t feel much through the suit.”
The flower head rustled as Cal moved around. “OK, got it. Pulling the tongue… now.”
Cal pulled. The tongue this time.
With a shriek, the petals sprang open as if they were all on hinges. Still holding the tongue, Cal fell, swung like Tarzan, then went sailing through the open doorway and into the corridor beyond.
He hit the floor, careened helpessly across it on his back for several feet, then collided with the warp disk that Mech had left propped against the corridor wall.
It fell on him, the edge of the disk clipping the top of his helmet and pinning his head to the ground.
Inside the helmet, Cal watched as a thin jagged line began meandering down from the point of impact. “Oh, shizz. That’s not good,” he said. “Mech, get this thing off me!”
The warp disk was hoisted into the air. Cal held his breath, expecting to smell an inrush of toxic atmosphere and feel his brains turning to gravy at any second.
But the crack had stopped growing, and the glass seemed to be holding for the moment. He used Mech’s leg to pull himself up, gave himself a dust down, and risked a glance back into the room with the plant. The petals were all the way wide again, the tongue coiled and ready to strike.
“So, what the fonk was going on there?” Cal asked. “I thought it was supposed to be, like, yay big?”
He mimed a standard houseplant size. “And no one said anything about it being man-eating! Why is it man-eating? Why would you even have that on a ship? And why put in the room with the TV?”
“I think it was in the vents,” said Mech, hoisting the warp disk onto his shoulder. He began the steady plod back in the direction of the airlock, while Cal walked backward beside him, still watching the room they’d just left.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“The plant. It was growing out of the vents,” said Mech.
Cal regarded him blankly.
“So, it didn’t necessarily start in that room,” Mech explained. “It could’ve been somewhere else, then it grew through the vents.”
“Through the vents?” said Cal.
He looked along the corridor ahead of them. Every dozen feet or so, up where the wall met the ceiling, was a slatted metal grate.
“You mean like the air vents?”
There was a sound from the wall beside them, like rats were scurrying around inside the cavity. It quickly passed them, and they both watched as one of the grates up ahead fell off and landed on the floor with a clang.
Mech glared at Cal as the tip of something green and fibrous appeared from inside the vent and moved tentatively in the air.
“OK, fine. You were right,” said Cal with a sigh. “The plant was a bad idea.”
“They back yet?” asked Miz, slumping into her seat aboard the Currently Untitled.
Loren tore her gaze from the screen and glanced at the door to make sure Tyrra wasn’t about to follow Miz onto the bridge.
“No,” she said. She checked the displays on her console, then spoke in a low, matter-of-fact voice. “Your problem’s with me, Miz, not Cal.”
Miz scowled. “Excuse me?”
“You shouldn’t be angry at Cal because he and I are… You know. Together. You can’t keep blaming him.”
“I don’t even care,” Miz said, rolling her eyes. “Like, do what you want. Ew.”
“So, it’s just a coincidence that you let Tyrra keep hurting him?” Loren asked.
“She needs to practice, and he heals fast,” said Miz. “Duh!”
“You’re punishing him. You’re punishing him for choosing me,” Loren said. “And it’s not fair. He hasn’t done anything wrong. If you want to punish anyone, I’m right here.”
Miz drummed her claws on the arm of her chair for a few moments, eyeballing Loren. Loren held the gaze, unflinching.
“Tch. Whatever,” Miz said, eventually relenting. “I’m not punishing anyone. She’s practicing.”
“For what? Becoming a serial killer?” asked Loren. “She’s a kid. She doesn’t need to spend all her time stabbing things.”
“Not my fault if that’s all she wants to do,” Miz said. “I’m just, like, helping her, or whatever.”
“Find her a different hobby,” Loren suggested. “Because this with Cal? It ends. Now. It is done.”
The fur on Miz’s neck bristled, and her lips twitched as if a snarl was trying to force its way through.
“He never wanted to hurt you,” Loren said, trying to calm the situation before it could escalate any further. “He cares about you, Miz. A lot. He really does.”
Miz stood up. “Just not enough, I guess,” she muttered, then she turned sharply and and headed for the door.
“Oh, and Loren,” she said, stopping when she reached the doorway.
“Yeah?”
Miz looked back over her shoulder, her deep brown eyes dark and shimmering. “Hurt him and I’ll kill you.”
Loren nodded. “Ditto,” she said.
“Apologies for interrupting such a wonderfully tense face-off,” intoned Kevin. “But I have some good news regarding Masters Carver and Mech. They are alive and on their way back.”
Miz’s eyes went to the screen. Loren spun in her seat. One of Splurt’s eyes turned the other way so he was looking in two directions at once.
“What the hell did they do this time?” Loren wondered.
“Ah yes, that’s rather the bad news,” said Kevin.
On screen, Mech and Cal came hurtling through space as, behind them, vast plant-like tendrils exploded through the windows of the ship and grabbed after them.
“They don’t appear to be alone.”
Seven
“It’s got me! It’s got me!” Cal hollered, as he and Mech drifted in through the Untitled’s outer airlock door. One of the vines had wrapped around Cal’s ankle, and was twisting up past his shin, over his knee, and continuing in a worryingly northerly direction. “Get it off, get it off!”
Mech slammed a hand on the button to close the door
. It shut with a clang, severing the plant tendril. Despite the sudden amputation—or possibly because of it—the tentacle thrashed around, spraying viscous green sap all around the room. The sap floated in gelatinous blobs, then the airlock’s artificial gravity kicked in and everything that was currently hovering in mid-air suddenly decided not to be.
While Cal continued to thrash, scream, and test the limits of the translation chip’s censorship abilities, Mech caught the severed end of the tendril and gave it a sharp, sudden tug. Cal spun like a top, flipping up off the floor and performing seven or eight complete rotations before landing again.
The plant wrestled against Mech, trying to coil up his arm as he twisted the severed end into a knot and pulled the whole thing tight. That done, he turned and hurled it against the bulkhead wall. It hit with something between a thud and a splat, then dropped to the floor, twitched a few times, and fell still.
“Ugh,” Cal groaned from down on the floor. “I fonking hate space.”
He stood with some difficulty, unfastened the clips and pulled his helmet off, then spent an enjoyable thirty seconds scratching his head and every available part of his face. “Oh, that’s good,” he said. “That’s the stuff right there.”
Outside, an oozing green tendril slapped angrily against the airlock’s porthole window, smearing it with frosty green sap.
“Ha! Not so tough now, are you, stumpy?” said Cal, giving the vine the finger. “What’s the matter? Locked out? Aw, you poor thing. That’s what you get for trying to tongue me in places I didn’t want to be tongued. You lose, pal. You…”
The ship creaked ominously around them. It was not a noise Cal had heard the Currently Untitled make before. It was not a noise he’d heard any ship he was on make before. He’d have remembered the nerve-jangling sense of terror it brought with it.
“Um… What was that?” he asked, looking up.
Mech’s expression was cold. “You know damn well what it is.”
Cal played it as innocently as he could. “I mean, I guess it could be the plant, but it’s highly unlikely.”
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