Improbable Botany

by Wayward

  “And is there any way of reversing it?” I asked.

  “Perhaps. Let me study it.”

  As Holmes returned to his examination of the tube, I felt something stroke across the back of my neck. Whipping around, I saw a vine tendril curling towards me; with unbelievable speed it lashed itself around my shoulders. I cried out in shock.

  Holmes, still intent on the traction beam, glanced over his shoulder. “That is no doubt how Colonel Wraxford died,” he observed calmly. “Keep it back, Watson, if you please. I fancy it is taking offence at our efforts to divert the asteroid.”

  I dug into my pocket and took out my clasp knife, but in the moment it took me to open the blade, two or three more tendrils had wrapped themselves around me, pinning my arms to my sides. I wrenched an arm free and slashed through the stems, but more rushed to replace them. I could not reach my revolver, but in any case, where would I have fired, with so many stems rushing into the attack?

  More tendrils lashed about my ankles, and I crashed to the floor. As I lay helpless, I saw more vine stems racing across the rooftop at unbelievable speed, all heading toward Holmes and the telescope. I let out a groan as I realised that I had failed.

  Then I saw that I was lying close to Moriarty’s book. Fumbling matches from my pocket, I managed to tear out a few pages and set them alight. The vines that bound me shrank away from the fire, springing away into the air in frantic coils.

  Struggling to my feet, I tore away the last surviving tendrils and lit more pages, to rake the flames across the stems that were threatening Holmes. The vine fled before me and I followed with yet more blazing pages. By the time I had gutted the entire book, the vine had vanished back over the balustrade, and I dropped the last of the flaming paper down onto the conservatory roof.

  The flames died, but the vine did not renew the assault. Turning back toward Holmes, I saw that while I was struggling, he had somehow managed to adjust the blue beam. Now it had expanded into a long, thin cone.

  “Holmes, what are you doing?” I asked.

  Before I finished speaking, Holmes let out a sharp cry and staggered back from the telescope, one arm raised to shield his eyes. At the same moment I saw a silver glow in the sky where the asteroid was; it grew brighter for a few seconds, then faded and vanished.

  “What was that?” I asked. “Holmes, are you all right?”

  Holmes straightened up, breathing hard. “I was able to adjust the mechanism so that the traction beam enfolded the asteroid, and its force was exerted on all parts of it in different directions. In consequence, it exploded.”

  “Wonderful!” I exclaimed. “Then the world is saved!”

  “Let us hope that the fragments pass us by, or are too small to do any damage.” Holmes switched off the beam, then held out a hand to me. “Your revolver, Watson.” I handed it to him, and he fired several shots into the tube that held the traction beam. “Scientists might accuse me of vandalism,” he said, “but I think it best that this last invention of Moriarty’s should vanish from the world. And now let us go, Watson,” he continued. “Tomorrow we will visit Inspector Lestrade. If we describe to him the events of tonight, he will surely release that unfortunate fellow Merton.”

  ~

  As you are reading this account, you will realise that Holmes was right, and the fragments of the asteroid passed by safely, although about a week later we were treated to a spectacular meteor shower over London.

  But I will never forget Holmes’s words that night after we left the roof and stood in the darkened conservatory. Colonel Wraxford’s body had, of course, been removed. The vine still lived, but its stems had shrunk back and the floor was littered with shrivelling buds.

  “It is evident that far from being evil, the vine simply wanted to reproduce,” said Holmes. “When the asteroid struck, its seed pods would have exploded in the cataclysm and its seeds would have been expelled into space, to float there until they found another planet to colonise.”

  “And it killed Wraxford because he would have prevented that?”

  “True, Watson. How Moriarty must have appreciated the coincidence, that he powered his evil artefact from the very plant that desired its success above all else.”

  “Thank God that you managed to counteract it.”

  Holmes nodded thoughtfully. “But mark this, Watson. You and I may not live to see it, but there will come a time when the end of the world will threaten us again: through evil, or ignorance, or plain carelessness. Then mankind may have cause to be grateful for the warning of the apocalypse vine.”

  STEPHEN PALMER

  You Bringers of Oxygen

  The horse-tail rivalled Centre Point in height, blocking the crossroads at St. Giles Circus, so that a person could squeeze between the algae-covered stem and the surrounding buildings, but no car could pass. Chervil, his bandana green-stained, a kerchief tied across the lower half of his face, stepped back to consider his handiwork.

  “Good morning equisetale,” he said. “There will be more of you now that dawn has come. Sphenophyllales, lycopodiales, lepidodendrales, filicales, medullosales… all you bringers of oxygen! Rise up and – ”

  He turned around. He heard something.

  ~

  Huw Bollivera saw all this from the steps of Tottenham Court Road tube station. He saw Chervil turn, spot him, then run. Waving both hands in the air Huw shouted across the fern-choked Oxford Street to Fae Harries, who had taken shelter in the doorway of the old Virgin building. “Catch him! He’s getting away!”

  Fae clambered through spore-laden fern fronds at the east end of the street, but the slippery ground and the profusion of ferns made her progress slow. Huw, trapped by club mosses, was unable to follow. He watched as Chervil jumped into a griffinfly and rose into the sky, to be hidden moments later by the upper floors of the Dominion Theatre.

  Fae forged her way through the ferns to reach Huw. She was in tears. “He did it… he really did it.”

  Huw hugged her, pulling her a few paces down the tube station steps as a two metre millipede crawled past. “They’ll think we did it,” he said. “We’re good as dead. They still don’t understand that Chervil Guava is part of the military wing – ”

  “Shush!”

  Huw listened. He heard a humming symphony of insect noise, pattering water dripping off hundred metre tall scale-trees, the creaking of newly formed lignin. “What?” he whispered.

  “A buzzy.”

  Huw listened again. He was old, grizzled, not like the svelte teenager Fae. His hearing was shot to pieces. “Sure?” he asked.

  Then flickering light beams played across the algae-smeared tiles of the tube station entrance. Huw gasped, turned around. People ascending.

  “They’re on to us,” he said. “Run! They’ll think we – ”

  But Fae was already dashing into daylight. Huw followed.

  “Down Charing Cross Road,” he shouted. “The horse-tails haven’t reached that far south yet.”

  They ran without looking back, knowing their safety rested on a knife edge. The dawn sun illuminated the upper reaches of the buildings lining the street, but at ground level all was misty, spore-dense and slippery with crushed insect eggs and algae. The drains spewed green slime. Conifer cones the size of sofas littered Denmark Street: that way barred. They struggled on to Shaftesbury Avenue.

  Too late. A pair of mayflies appeared over the spires of the Palace Theatre, then dropped like stones. Huw saw that they were marked with the blue-and-white stripes of Metropol. He would be caught.

  Nowhere to run. But Fae was invisible beneath a spray of fern fronds; and there was a spider nest at the base. “In there,” he said, “before the Mets see you.”

  Fae stared at him, horrified.

  “I’ll take the flak,” he said. “They’ll probably take me to New Scotland Yard. Rescue me if you can!”

  “But Huw – ”

  “No time. Hide!”

  Fae vanished into the silk-shrouded nest mouth, wrapping he
rself in a bulletproof waistcoat as she did, Huw’s last sight of her the fangproof boots she wore. He turned and leaped into the fern chaos, running, choking, sliding, until the mayflies hovered above him and he had to stop.

  A distorted voice: “Halt! We are armed Metropol. Halt!”

  He stopped, looking up at the mayflies.

  “Huw Bollivera, halt. There’s nowhere to run.”

  They had him, they knew him. He was going to be arrested.

  ~

  The interrogation room was large, bright and painted navy blue. The noon sun reflecting off Thamesia sent shimmering lights across the ceiling, but sitting on the opposite side of the table was an unexpected person: Haughtenson Curr, the turncoat Kewpol renegade. White shirt, black trousers and red braces.

  “Why?” Huw asked.

  “Why me?”

  Huw nodded.

  Haughtenson shrugged, lit a cig and inhaled. Huw shuddered at the message of this botanic burning. “I suppose they think I know you best,” he said. “A vertebrate to question a vertebrate.”

  “We didn’t do it. It was Chervil.”

  Haughtenson nodded. “Of course it was. We know Kew – ”

  “No! We are not their political wing. They are our military wing, and we dissociate ourselves – ”

  “Shall we get down to the details? How do we reverse the oxygenation?”

  Huw said nothing, shrugged. “I don’t know… Chervil is his own man.” Sick with grief, Huw sagged back into his chair. “I honestly don’t know.”

  “And your Kewpol colleagues?”

  Huw shook his head. “We researched the Carboniferous, but it was never a matter of policy. All we wanted was – ”

  “A greener place. Of course.”

  Haughtenson’s patronising tone was all the more unbearable because of its origin. “You know,” Huw said, “of all the Kewpol turncoats – ”

  “I’m a city man now,” Haughtenson interrupted, “and all the better for it. But I’m glad we caught you. You were the one we wanted, Huw. The boss. Your teen army is a nuisance, but it’s you with all the experience – ”

  “There’s a dozen to replace me.”

  Haughtenson blinked, and there came a hint of anxiety to his expression. “Naturally. We did realise.”

  “What will you do with me?”

  “Gaol you without trial.”

  “What will you do about London?”

  Haughtenson smiled, stubbing his cig out on a porcelain frog. “Burn everything that’s grown. Burn it to the ground, so that London returns to what it was before.”

  ~

  Fae stood on top of the Shard and gazed out over London. From horizon to horizon all was hazy.

  Three days had passed since Huw’s capture. Kewpol was in disarray, a new leader still unelected, panic abroad, London aflame. But the oxygenated air was changing now.

  Smoke was plant food. Oxygen enlivened insects. Yet smoke would temporarily alter London’s microclimate: the plants that choked the streets of the city…

  From Heathrow in the west to the docks in the east, from Hampstead Heath in the north to Crystal Palace in the south, all was enshrouded in smoke as the conifers, the mosses, the mares-tails and the ferns burned. As the day passed the sun vanished into particulate-heavy clouds that grew dense, grew smoggy, then descended over the city to form a monochrome pea-souper.

  Fae called her colleagues on the tendril radio. Still no plan to combat Metropol. Afternoon waned into evening.

  A dragonfly, young judging by its small size, landed a few metres below her. She considered it, considered Kewpol’s inactivity, then made a decision. Since there was no leader she would have to act as one, the lovelock on her forehead her mark of wisdom.

  There came no thrum now from Heathrow Airport, and Fae knew her mount might be the last dragonfly of its kind. Piloting the insect she flew across Thamesia towards Westminster and Victoria Street. The stone walls and wrought iron grilles of New Scotland Yard were lampblack-stained, where they were visible through the pall, and towards them she flew, descending to the building’s roof. Spiders scuttled away as they felt through their webs the shock of her landing. An arthropleura crawled away on a thousand legs, realising she was too large a supper even for it.

  Fae pulled a black cloak over her bulletproof waistcoat, donned gloves and a face mask, then prepared an elodea bottle to combat the worsening smoke. And it was becoming warm. She glanced over the edge of the building to see that the leaders of the city had realised this, and were extracting as much energy from the street fires as they could.

  Huw, she knew, would use secret Kewpol codes to mark his gaol, and there indeed was the sign, a lone sphenophyllale vine knotted once hanging from an eyrie window. Fae flew the dragonfly towards it, landing vertically beside the barred window; the insect’s claws scraped the stone and sent trails of grit to the ground far below. Smoke billowed around her, and she put the elodea mask to her mouth and breathed deep. The dragonfly puttered, deactivating.

  Fae leaped across to the window sill and called through the grille. “Huw!” Before he could answer she was cutting the bars with a mini oxy-acetylene torch.

  He ran to the window, pulling the separated bars free. “We haven’t got much time. Haughtenson wants me to go over to his side. He thinks the time of the city has come – they’re going to use the street fires to expand urban London into the home counties.”

  “Greenfield sites?”

  “Everywhere. We’ve got to stop them.”

  Huw clutched her as she piloted the dragonfly west, but soon she realised that the insect was failing, as oxygen was replaced by smog. The lords of smoke were active in the heart of the city.

  ~

  At Kew, a meeting was called, the garret of Syon House filled with Kewpol activists.

  Huw made an opening speech. “It is the plan of Metropol to burn every plant-choked street in London. We cannot condone this. Either we fight Metropol hand to hand, in those burning streets, or we find some other way to reverse the damage Chervil did.”

  “Do they know Chervil started all this?” came a voice from the crowd.

  Huw nodded. “Though whether or not Haughtenson believed me is another matter. Metropol sees his wing and Kewpol as the same entity. They don’t see the subtleties.”

  Fae said, “We have our leader back. What next?”

  “Research,” said Huw. “We aren’t armed activists. Yes, we’ll defend ourselves if we’re attacked, but we won’t use the weapons of the enemy unless they leave us no choice. Here’s what I’m thinking. Until recently in evolutionary history the predominant photosynthetic pathway existed in conditions of plentiful food.”

  “And we’re becoming shrouded in smoke,” Fae said. “Increasing plant food.”

  Huw nodded. “But then a change occurred, in plants such as maize, sugarcane and so on – in other words the grasses that now cover so much of the land. This evolutionary change allowed plants to succeed in conditions of reduced food resources. Billions of years ago, when photosynthesis first evolved in cyanobacteria, there was a hundred times more food in the atmosphere, and far less oxygen.”

  “So we need to sow more of the plants that use the original photosynthetic pathway, just as Chervil brought back the Carboniferous plants?”

  “Exactly,” Huw said. “Here, then, is Kewpol’s plan for London. We sow the plants, we have them eat all that food, then we sequester them underground.”

  A voice at a garret window: “I think it might be too late.”

  Huw ran to the window. To the north and the east, from the smog-perverted centre of the city, a wall had appeared.

  “Buildings!” Huw whispered.

  Fae stood at his side. “Skyscrapers…”

  The roiling, dust-mantled wall of architectural activity rose like a tsunami, crossing Barnes and Chiswick before leaping Thamesia and settling upon East Sheen and the eastern district of Kew itself. As Huw watched, Kew Bridge was transformed into a titan of steel a
nd glass.

  And it had grown hot.

  Huw turned. “Abandon Syon House!” he ordered. “It is too late for us here. We’ll burn in the heat of the fires. Gather as much of our research as you can and head west for the home counties.”

  At once the garret was all activity. Files were stuffed into backpacks, books wrapped and stowed, scientific papers placed into cotton bags. Ten minutes later the men and women of Kewpol stood fearful and jittery at the door of Syon House. Huw fretted. Ninety percent of their archive remained inside, uncollected.

  Too late. The architectural wave hit them like a tidal surge. Huw ran around the house to look east: a tsunami threatened. Buildings rose around them with time-lapse rapidity, the manufacturing scaffolds around them like so many oriental cranes.

  And the air was shimmering hot. He wiped the sweat from his brow. All the insects of the Carboniferous had burned, he knew; they would have to find alternative transport.

  “To the river!” he cried. “It is too late for steeds. We will boat down to Chertsey, then cut across to the green sanctuary of Windsor Great Park. Hurry!”

  The miniature armada set sail minutes later, passing through Richmond, Twickenham and Kingston as the heat and stink of the architectural wave swarmed around them. Smoke and dust shrouded everything, falling upon the water to form a sticky crust that twinkled with glass fragments. As they rounded Hampton Court Park the heat became intense; they sweated, they gasped for air, they were parched. And still the distant burning continued, in the centre of the smog, like the beating heart of a demon.

  Past Hampton they floated, past Molesey, Sunbury, Walton and Shepperton, until Chertsey was near. But here the great wave relented, reaching the technological limit to its growth, albeit awaiting the next technological advance. In Chertsey they disembarked. Three miles to the west lay Virginia Water, and west of that Windsor Great Park.