The news of those events spread like wild fire, and the size of Horsh Gorbrey didn’t seem so important anymore. While Devouring Plasma remained there, on that small planet, they remained small, like fish in a small fish bowl, hence the nickname for Horsh Gorbrey. But once they were out, once they escaped to the huge planet Smotheria, they reached gigantic proportions, and their ability to reproduce by fragmentation, or spores, or exchange of gametes meant it was virtually impossible to eradicate them.
Barnes Kraling estimated in twenty years, there won’t be a biologically active and diverse Smotheria. The fish is out of its goldfish bowl and it has gotten big, very big.
******************************
Wayne joined Blackie who was still observing the slime mold ingesting bits of food on the ground.
“I wouldn’t do that,” said Blackie, as Wayne reached down to poke it with his finger.
“What’s it going to do, chase me down and eat me?” and Wayne poked it.
The slime mold quit moving momentarily then set about creeping across the ground again.
Amelia and Joules joined them to see what they were so intent on watching.
“Don’t touch it,” said Wayne.
“Are they poisonous?” asked Amelia.
“I hope not,” said Wayne. His finger had gone numb and he was flicking his hand unconsciously.
“Wayne, you touched that slimy thing, didn’t you? asked Amelia. “What were you thinking?”
“Yeah, but look at it, it’s tiny, how was I supposed to know the little thing could make my hand go dead.”
“Wayne, that thing is bigger than a Black Widow spider and you wouldn’t play around with one of those, would you? How is your hand?” she asked.
Wayne tried to appear nonplussed about the whole incident before answering. “My arm is going numb.”
Amelia rushed to the Nomad and retrieved her backpack. Throwing it on the hood of the Nomad, she frantically started pulling things out. In seconds she found what she was looking for – a medicine kit with a small container, a bottle of pills, and a roll of gauze. “Wayne take these,” she said putting two pills in his left hand.
Squeezing some liquid from a tube onto a paper towel she then rubbed it on his right hand, being careful not to touch his skin. He put the pills in his mouth. “Now, drink this,” she said, handing him a bottle of water. Amelia began wrapping his hand in gauze and then made a suggestion, “I think you should lie down in the Nomad. Honestly Wayne, what were you thinking?”
Wayne finished downing the bottle of water, then sat in the back seat of the car. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.” His arm was limp at his side. “It’s nice back here,” he said, and fell sideways onto the seat delirious.
After several hours, Wayne was still feverish, and Amelia had been pacing beside the car the whole time. “Amelia, there’s nothing we can do but wait for him to snap out of it,” said Blackie, as he watched her turn and walk the length of the car again.
“It’s been hours,” she said fretfully. “What if the meds I gave him made it worse, not better? What was he thinking; touching some oozy thing on a strange planet. He’s lucky it didn’t kill him on the spot.”
“Remind him of that when he wakes up.” said Blackie. “You gave him an antihistamine, right?”
“Yes, and I smeared antibiotic gel on his hand; it was all I could think to do.”
Joules had been sitting on the back bumper, listening, but saying nothing. This was her bailiwick; she had experience with odd and dangerous alien creatures. It was a required course of study in her degree plan. Gafcon University didn’t want their astro-paleontologists traveling the universes without knowing what dangers they might encounter, and based on what she remembered from her advanced species lab, there were plenty of them.
So many in-fact, their professor required each student to purchase an extensive field guide that listed planets with active dig sites, and what to watch out for on each one. She recalled studying quite a few monstrous creatures, but she didn’t remember the little slimy organism Wayne prodded with his finger. There was however, a clear point emphasized over and over in the book she remembered clearly, “If you don’t know it – then don’t touch it!”
“Wayne’s tough,” said Joules, as Amelia reached the back of the Nomad. “His breathing sounds regular and he didn’t appear to have a rash, other than discoloration on his finger and the back of his hand. There isn’t any indication of an infection and his fever hasn’t gotten worse; those are all good signs. Maybe he’s still woozy of the antihistamines.”
“Maybe,” is the only reply Amelia could muster. She stood near the driver side tailfin thinking, wondering, if there was something else they could do. “We need a Goshwam,” she said, remembering the small being they met in the desert on Lindone that saved Blackie’s life.
As Amelia walked by the open door, Wayne groaned, rolled onto his back and sat up.
“Wayne, are you okay?” asked Amelia.
“Was I asleep?” asked Wayne.
“Not exactly. You’ve been delirious for about 4 hours mate,” replied Blackie. “Amelia paced so much she wore a ditch in the ground. I wasn’t worried though. You’re so ornery I knew it would take more than a slime mold to put you down.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. It’s like having Mark here.”
“I do what I can. Let’s see if you can stand.”
Blackie grabbed his left hand and pulled Wayne out of the car and onto his feet. “Are you stable?”
“Quite, although I’m sure if your brother were here he would disagree.” He leaned toward Blackie and whispered, “How mad was she?”
“A little, but more worried than mad.”
“Wayne, I can hear you, and yes, I was mad. Now let me have your hand,” said Amelia.
Joules retrieved the small medical kit from Amelia’s backpack and handed her a small white tube of ointment. Amelia squeezed some of the clear antibiotic onto a paper towel and said, “Wayne let me have your hand.”
“What? Is that going to hurt? He was hiding his right hand behind his back.
“No, it’s not going to hurt your hand, but the rest of you will hurt if you don’t cooperate.”
Reluctantly, Wayne offered his hand to Amelia who removed the gauze wrapping. His pointing finger and the skin on the back of his hand showed evidence of a chemical burn. It was reddened and little flakes of dry skin were starting to slough off. Amelia dabbed the ointment on the reddened areas, making sure to cover all the edges.
“That feels good, thanks.”
“Your welcome,” said Amelia, passing the tube of ointment back to Joules. “I’m glad you’re better.” She stripped off her gloves and went looking for the trash sack.
About two steps away Amelia stopped, and turned back toward them. “Wayne?”
“Yeah.”
“The next time you have the urge to play with an alien creature, do me a favor, would you?”
“What’s that?”
“Next time, poke it gently with a stick and not your finger,” she said, and turned to find a trash sack.
“I’d say you got off lightly,” whispered Blackie, “you deserved much worse.”
“She won’t stay mad at me long,” sniggered Wayne, “I’m in a band.”
“You two should learn to whisper or quit trying,” offered Joules, “we heard every word you said.”
“Maybe we could all take a walk,” said Blackie, trying to change the subject. “I need some exercise to unwind.”
“That’s a great idea, but let’s not go too far,” said Joules, “Anonoi told us to stay close to the Nomad.”
“Easy for him to say,” replied Wayne, “He gets to flit around from planet to planet like he’s on vacation, while we’re stuck here. How about you Amelia, are you up for a hike?”
“Sure, I’d like that, as long as no one touches anything they shouldn’t be fooling with.”
“Scouts honor.”
“Were you
a boy scout, Wayne?” asked Blackie.
“No, but I mean it in the sincerest way possible. I move we hike across that meadow and back,” he said, pointing to a field that opened up beyond a stand of tall trees in front of the Nomad.
“Splendid idea,” said Blackie, “I second the motion.” Then he explained boy scouts to Joules.
The meadow was broad and long, and mostly covered in short green vegetation. Occasionally, a clump of tall willowy bushes broke up the green carpet that stretched to the sides of the meadow where scrubby trees formed a natural enclosure. Intermittently throughout the meadow were outcroppings of gray igneous rocks covered with green and gray lichens.
If their tops hadn’t been exposed by years and years of erosion, and the underlying pressures of uplifting, it would have been difficult to distinguish them from the surrounding vegetation. But now there were no patches of bare dirt. The short green vegetation highly invasive and had covered every available square inch of soil that wasn’t occupied by another plant.
“Let’s walk, shall we?” said Wayne who offered his arm to Amelia; it was more a show of remorse than an offer of help.
He winked, and Amelia couldn’t help but smile. Blackie and Joules followed along behind them, watching Wayne do his best impersonation of a 'walking and falling down' stride – he looked like the scare crow in the Wizard of Oz, just after he slipped off the nail that fastened him to his pole.
Blackie watched and chuckled at Wayne’s irregular movements. “I think the poison made him loopy. Wayne isn’t ever giddy,” he said, as Wayne began singing the scare crow’s song.
“… communing with the flowers, consulting with the rain…”.
“You’re going to tell Mark about this, aren’t you?” said Joules with a wry smile on her face.
“Absolutely. As soon as we see him.” Blackie was overcome with thoughts of his brother. Did they escape the dreadful pounding the Zin Charr cruiser was giving Arton’s stealth fighter? Where could Mark and Nita be now? Did they make it to Centoria? Blackie wouldn’t allow himself to consider the ship may have been forced down and they all may have been captured, or worse.
“That didn’t happen,” he muttered.
“Excuse me?” said Joules.
“Oh nothing; just day dreaming,” he replied, trying to dodge any discussion of his brother and Nita. “It looks like Wayne is almost back to normal,” offered Blackie as he gestured toward Wayne, who was now walking beside Amelia, normally, and not singing.
Joules had been watching Wayne’s antics with a smile on her face. “Yeah, or he’s doing a good impersonation of normal Wayne.”
They were now about half way across the meadow when a rabbit-like animal bolted out from under a stand of willowy bushes and raced toward the end of the meadow as if a predator was right on his heels. It ran furiously, though it wasn’t being chased, and occasionally jumped in the air, sailing for two meters or more before landing and madly running again.
Before it reached the other side, shoots of grass began bursting through the ground around it as it ran. The grass grew so rapidly the group could see it getting taller before their eyes. What was inch long grass when the creature bolted from the bushes was now almost two feet tall, swaying menacingly ahead of the rabbit to slow it down.
The creature jumped in the air again, and again, and skidded to a halt under the far tree line. It shivered momentarily, then cleaned its fur before stalking carefully into the trees away from the grass.
The group had been so mesmerized by the animal’s flight they didn’t notice the grass behind them was now two meters tall and growing. As grass all around them burst upward into tall, heavy stands and began waving back, they couldn’t not notice anymore.
“Get to those rocks,” yelled Joules, who pointed to an outcropping of gray stone about twenty-five meters to their left.
The grass was so tall and thick they had to forced themselves through the heavy stands. By the time they reached the rocks the grass had reached a height of three meters, and it was still growing. From the top of the mound, all they could see was a wall of grass six meters tall. Amelia immediately took stock of their condition. The grass had thrashed them badly; their necks, arms and hands were covered in tiny papercut like slashes.
Blackie had thin rivulets of blood on each side of his face where the blades had sliced his skin. The flow wasn’t staunched when he wiped his face with his hand; it collected on his jawline and dripped onto a rock beneath his feet. To keep the blood from dripping down the front of his shirt he leaned forward slightly.
“It won’t be long before dark. How fast can we get back to the Nomad?” asked Amelia.
“The fastest way is to find our way back across this meadow,” replied Wayne, “that seems simple enough.”
“That grass is tall, said Joules, “probably three meters high, or more.
“We can push our way through. How hard can it be? It’s grass.”
“This is not ordinary grass,” said Joules, “this is Sanguinifolia major. The blades have sharp margins that can slice your skin like thousands of irritating paper cuts. And, they exude a chemical that thins blood, so even a tiny cut bleeds more than normal.”
“What happened anyway?” asked Blackie. “We were walking along and suddenly we were being surrounded.”
“It must have been that animal,” said Joules, “the one that bolted from under the bushes. The grass’ roots sense vibrations when something walks across the soil. It triggers them to start growing and they bend against anything trying to pass through their fields. The grass was trying to slow down that animal, swaying to confuse it, so it would lose its sense of direction. It did that to us when we ran to this rock. It will do anything to confuse its prey or slow it down.”
“So, we pay attention to where we’re going and push a little harder,” suggested Wayne. “It may take a while longer, but it’s not getting any earlier. If we force our way through the grass we can get back to the Nomad. Why is that a problem?”
“Why is that a problem? This is Sanguinifolia major, that’s the problem. They drink animal blood - lots of it.”
“They drink blood?” asked Amelia.
“Yes, they drink blood! They use their swaying motion to confuse their prey and to inflict cuts. The edges of the blades are extremely sharp and the grass can grow so fast it can trap an animal and prevent it from moving. When something gets snared the blades twist tightly against its captive to collect the drops of blood and funnel them to special openings in the leaves. Eyewitness reports have described animals the size of horses being trapped by Sanguinifolia and drained of their blood.”
“Joules, are you sure this is Sangui-whatever?” asked Wayne.
“I’m positive. We had a sample in the university’s advanced species lab. It was growing in a planter box in the corner by the front door. Students would tease it by running their fingers across the top of the potting soil and the next student in the door usually got a thrashing.”
“A biohazard team had to come in every time and clean up blood spots on the floor. Eventually it was happening so often the maintenance department demanded we relocate the planter to the back of the room so it couldn’t attack people anymore.”
Amelia shivered uncontrollably at Joules’ description. Math and astrophysics were much simpler – no teeth, no poisons, no blood or bloodletters, just numbers, formulas, and telescopes. The thought of vampire plants made her shiver again. Amelia wasn’t a coward, far from it. If necessary she could be as tough as needed, but only when needed. The college football star found that out when she decked him for harassing her sister on campus.
He woke up in the university’s infirmary, and to rub salt in the wound of an already embarrassing situation, the head football coach benched him and sent Amelia a letter commending her actions, if my players had guts like that, we’d be national champions, he had written. Refusing to shiver again, she joined the conversation about how they might return to the Nomad.
“I think we should stay here,” said Amelia. “We’re safe on this rock. I’ve got some snacks in my bag and Joules brought some water. If Anonoi comes back, he’ll have to find us. Besides, we shouldn’t take a chance on one of us getting an infected cut. That reminds me, I have a tube of antibiotic ointment. Everyone should treat their wounds.”
“I suppose there is no hurry to get back to the car,” said Blackie. “We can rest in shifts in case the nocturnals go crawling about.”
“Will it be any different tomorrow?” asked Wayne. “Are we postponing the inevitable?”
“What do you think Joules? You’re the only one who knows anything about this,” said Amelia.
“I don’t know if the lab specimen’s reaction represents what happens in the field, but when the plant wasn’t disturbed again, by the next morning it had shed its leaves all over the floor and was barely visible in the planter box.”
“If there is a chance it will be better in the morning we should stay here,” said Wayne. “Let’s not make it any harder on Blackie – he’s allergic to grass.”
“Really! And when were you going to mention that,” said Joules, who was now inspecting the reddened slices on Blackie’s face and hands. “Amelia, do you have any more of that antihistamine?
“I do actually.”
“Let’s not overreact,” said Blackie. “The good news is I’m not dangerously allergic to anything. The bad news is - I’m allergic to everything. This is my typical response to… well, everything. It usually goes away.”
“That’s good to know,” replied Joules tartly. “You won’t mind if I dab you with ointment while you take an antihistamine then, will you?”
Wayne gave Blackie the 'time to surrender' look, so Blackie put the pill in his mouth while Joules worked on his cuts.
“Ugh, that’s disgusting,” he said, twisting up his face as Joules gave him a bottle of water to wash down the pill.
Joules ignored his scrunched up facial features. “We should try to leave before sunup. Sanguinifolia is less active before dawn when the ground is cool and the new blades of grass haven’t been stimulated by sunlight.”
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