by Joel Ohman
“Yes. Many of the long-term effects of the Event still remain to be seen,” Orson replied.
“Whatever happens, we deserve it.” Hank stuffed more jerky in his already-full mouth. “We never should have messed around with something we don’t understand and tinkered with nature like that.”
Grigor turned, his large brow furrowed. “It’s not so wrong to do experiments, and to learn from nature—think about all of the good things man has been able to do because of ‘tinkering with nature’, as you put it. But you are right, we can go too far.”
“Well, what would you say is too far, Grigor?” Sandy asked.
“I think that when we reduce life to its physical components, mechanize it, act as if life were nothing more than the sum total of what we can see—a wing, a leg, an eye, or whatever—and we bring it under human control and design it, then the result is that life is engineered in man’s image and not God’s.”
Sandy paused, her jerky halfway to her mouth. “That still doesn’t explain the aggressiveness, though—the animal combinations, the Bramble. It seems like everything is engineered with rage toward man.”
At that, Charley introspected: sounds a lot like me. He shook off the thought. He could help himself. He wasn’t just an animal: he could control the rage.
“That’s because it is,” Grigor responded, packing away the few remaining portions of meat. “Engineered, I mean. Remember, causing the Event—a calamity on such a large scale—seems to have been an accident. But whoever was behind this very much intended for their experimentation to be used as weaponry, or at least it certainly appears that way. The aggressiveness found in all animal combinations and in the Bramble is inherent in their DNA: it’s what they are, what they are designed to be.”
“I’ve seen a friendly animal combination,” Charley said, and instantly regretted it.
All eyes turned to him. He mumbled, “I mean, I’ve seen some that don’t seem so bad …” He trailed off lamely as a hush fell over the group.
Grigor broke the silence. “It could happen. As we said, there is a lot we don’t yet know, and things are in a constant state of flux.”
Orson’s eyes were set on Charley. “Yes, a constant state of flux. That they are.” Orson’s gaze remained fixed on Charley until Charley shifted uncomfortably and looked away.
“So, the history lesson is helpful, but what should we do right now about the Bramble? Does anyone have any suggestions?” Charley inquired, deliberately changing the subject.
All was silent until Orson smiled wolfishly. “You’re the big shot who led us to the Bramble; you’re the one who’s supposed to have the plan.”
“Um, yeah, about that …” Charley stammered. He felt his face reddening; he needed to buy some time. He was quickly learning a key lesson of adulthood: to lead others toward a goal is exponentially more complex than simply heading toward a goal by yourself.
Sandy spoke up slowly. “I think I have an idea.”
Charley flushed deeper. Of course she just had to get her two cents in and make him look like an inept and clueless leader. He knew he was being unreasonable; she only wanted to help. He forced his voice to sound enthusiastic. “Great! Let’s hear it!” Charley exclaimed, perhaps a little too eagerly, he thought.
“Well, okay, it’s just an idea, but here’s what I was thinking.” Sandy hesitated, clasping and unclasping her arms. “Do you remember how that tangle of vines followed my hand as I moved it, and then it actually lunged at me?”
Hank snorted. “Of course.” He made a face. “Kind of awesome.”
“Yeah, kind of.” Sandy attempted a small grin. “I think—” she motioned to Grigor—“as Grigor mentioned earlier, aggression is not the best course of action, so why don’t we not try to fight our way through it, but instead give the Bramble what it wants?”
“Which is?” Charley asked.
Sven piped up, his small features etched with worry. “Please don’t say we have to sacrifice one of us.”
“No,” Sandy said slowly. “But it would mean that we would have to get rid of the last of our food.”
“Our durkey jerky?” Hank asked. “Well, good riddance!”
Sandy nodded. “Right, we would use it as a kind of bait to lure it in one direction, while we passed through it—but that means we won’t have anything else stored for food.”
“What are you thinking? That the Bramble is populated with carnivorous plants?” Grigor asked.
Sandy gulped. “Yes. Well, I think so.”
“Only one way to find out,” Charley said, dashing over to the Bramble and rashly tossing a piece of his jerky toward the rattan vine that had accosted Sandy. With a ligneous creak, the gnarled root-like creepers entangled the small piece of meat and retreated inward. “She’s right!” Charley shouted gleefully.
“It just might work.” Grigor looked at Sandy appreciatively. “Great thinking, Sandy.”
“Wonderful,” Hank intoned. “An entire jungle populated with nothing but Venus flytraps that are actually mantraps.”
Orson stroked his chin, still watching the Bramble. He muttered to himself so quietly it was almost a whisper: “It’s not unheard of. There have always been stories told of man-eating plants, even pre-Event: the Nubian tree, Vampire Vines, the Madagascar tree, the Devil’s Snare; the list goes on.”
Now it was Charley’s turn to watch Orson. Not for the first time Charley felt quite certain that Orson knew much more than he was letting on.
But Charley had other things to contend with. The entire group stood next to him, just a few paces from the Bramble. Charley held up his hand. “Shh, listen.”
There was a moment of absolute silence, and then Hank spoke up. “What are we listening for? I don’t hear anything.”
“That’s the thing—it’s quiet, too quiet.” Charley paused, still listening. “There are no sounds of animal life at all in the Bramble. I think Sandy is right; animals just can’t survive in a jungle full of carnivorous plants.”
Grigor nodded. “Makes sense. That would also explain why we’ve had such difficult hunting these past few days. Game is scarce because they don’t want to go anywhere near the Bramble.” He looked from the swaying tendrils of the Bramble and over to Charley. “Now you don’t need to feel so bad about coming back empty-handed while hunting; it’s not your fault.”
Charley looked gratefully at Grigor. “Thanks.” Charley thought of the llamabill and shifted uncomfortably, breaking Grigor’s gaze. He felt guilty for not telling Grigor and the others what had happened. But he didn’t think they would understand, not while they were all still hungry.
“Alright, Sandy. What’s the next step of the plan?” Sven asked.
For a moment, Charley felt a bright spark of resentment that Sven had asked Sandy, and not him. It was Sandy’s idea—and way better than anything he had—but he was still supposed to be leading them, wasn’t he? He shook off the thought. They were working together.
“Well—” Sandy pulled out her small pouch of durkey jerky—“the vines seem to be connected in various clusters, and each cluster moves as one toward easy prey—at least that’s the way it seemed earlier. I think if we throw small pieces of meat on either side of us, some to the left and some to the right, that they will coil in on themselves and allow a pathway through the middle for us.”
“We will need to move fast.” Grigor unslung his enormous pouch with the remainder of their meat reserves. “This is all we have left.”
“Let’s divide it up and get going,” Sandy said.
Charley looked at her. That sounded very much like an order, and people were following her instantly. His foot scuffed at a rock; he couldn’t let go of the thought that he should have been the one to issue the instructions.
Well, he would at least make sure he was the first one into the Bramble. He looked up, ready to take his first step.
>
“Hey, it’s working!” Hank called out. He was already darting his way into the Bramble, sprinkling jerky on either side of his path, with Sandy right behind him, a carnivore’s Hansel and Gretel. Charley gritted his teeth and watched wordlessly as people streamed by him.
Grigor parceled out strips of dried meat to the groups taking up the rear. “Let’s go, quickly now.” He patted Charley on the shoulder, the same shoulder he had grabbed to restrain Charley earlier. “Here you go, Charley, the last of our food. Use it wisely—as small of pieces as possible, and only as needed. Let’s follow this nice path they are cutting for us. Nothing wrong with taking up the rear, right?”
Charley detected a small light of humor in Grigor’s bright eyes. “Nothing wrong with that at all,” Charley said, and finally took his first step into the Bramble.
The path, while free of the thorny rattan vines as they slithered back from the walkway in search of meat chunks, still housed slender lianas of new green shoots. These young tendrils would someday sprout and climb upward to join the intertwined latticework of plant life that held together the jungle canopy. Walking on the teeming undergrowth felt to Charley like he was walking on a bed of baby snakes; the plant life wriggled and bunched under his feet, seeming to press upward against the soles of his boots. And the ground wasn’t the worst of it. Charley looked upward, slowing. It was dark around him—the canopy of the Bramble was immense, stretching hundreds of feet, or even more, into the sky, and so thick with plant life that it blocked the sun. They were surrounded on each side, below and above. Charley’s pulse quickened; he felt like he was in a cocoon that was slowly shrinking in on him.
“Let’s keep it moving.” Grigor looked back at Charley, motioning onward, the muscles in his arms bunching and rippling.
“I’m coming.” Charley quickened his pace. He didn’t like it in here at all; the sudden plunge into near-darkness during the middle of the day unnerved him.
Shouts broke out ahead.
Charley and Grigor raced to catch up to the pack. “What is it?” Charley called out.
Sandy turned, eyes wide, and pointed to an enormous tree looming before them. Its trunk was thick, like an oak, but there any similarity to trees Charley had ever seen before stopped. Its branches of sorts writhed in slippery knots of delicate stamens that trembled in a weird sort of humming delight at the scent of the meat, and presumably of the humans below.
“It—it’s like a tree made of snakes or something …” Charley said, feeling revolted, yet not able to turn his eyes away.
Orson slipped beside them, not taking his eyes off of the tree either. “It’s a Medusa Tree. Well, Madagascar Tree, if you want to get technical …” His voice trailed off. “But you can certainly see why they would call it a Medusa tree …”
Charley peeled his eyes away from the writhing tree and looked down. He was surprised to see that the group had all clustered behind him again. He was back in front.
Sandy sidled up to him. “Do you think those tentacles can reach us down here?”
“I’m not sure. But we have to get past it somehow,” Charley said gruffly, turning away from her.
“I was just asking.”
Grigor turned to them. “We need to go under it, through it, or over it somehow. Going under its branches, if that’s what you want to call them, seems like the best bet. There isn’t really any way to go around it; the undergrowth is too thick.”
Orson continued to stare, transfixed, muttering to himself. “Definitely a Medusa Tree. It doesn’t look like it’s actually a man-eater …”
“Did he just say what I thought he said?” Sandy asked, looking over at Charley and Grigor.
“That it’s not a man-eater?” Charley looked back at the tree. “Well, if it’s not carnivorous, what is it? Why is it so aggressively straining toward us?”
Hank and Sven ambled over, disgusted looks on their faces. “You won’t believe this,” Sven began. “But, this tree-thing up ahead is kind of, well, in heat, I guess you might say …” Sven curled his lip in embarrassment.
“Of course! Those aren’t little mouths, they are actually stamens!” Sandy looked excited. “You know, the reproductive organ of a plant—like pollen, and all of that, you know?”
“Yes, yes, stamens. That’s why it’s called the Medusa Tree—it’s luring us closer,” Orson said a little louder this time, though still with a strange expression.
Hank looked over at Orson, and then back to the tree. “What’s with him? So, basically, we just need to creep underneath the tree without getting snagged by one of the, um, stamen-thingies, or whatever, and getting ourselves romance-attacked.”
“You’re disgusting.” Sandy frowned at Hank. “It’s just a plant. A big scary aggressive plant, but just a plant nonetheless. And, besides, unlike Medusa, at least looking at it won’t turn us to stone, right? That’s a positive.”
Grigor was restraining Orson gently but firmly by the arm. “It’s doing something to Orson, though, some pheromones or something. We need to get moving right away.”
“Let me go, you dolt!” Orson commanded, before staggering as if inebriated.
“Okay, who’s going to be Perseus and defeat Medusa?” Sven asked, looking over at Charley hopefully.
Even Hank was looking at Charley helplessly, his usual brashness noticeably absent. “What?” Hank said. “I’m not going to be the first to be sacrificed to some plant that wants to mate or something.”
At that, Sandy rolled her eyes, and looked to Charley.
Charley ruefully thought back to his earlier desire to lead. Sometimes it’s easier to wish you were in charge than to actually be in charge, he thought. But he knew it was up to him.
Charley looked at the Medusa Tree and began to walk toward it head-on.
Crouching low, he picked up speed in his easy Hunter’s lope. He aimed to approach the tree about halfway between the trunk and the furthest length its branches extended horizontally. As he drew close enough to see the dark purple stamens, he gulped, but forced himself to continue. The stalk-like filaments writhed and twisted, straining toward Charley as he ran beneath them. He ducked his head down even lower, the deep indigo stamens trembling above his head, their anthers poised to release what looked to be yellowish flakes of pollen.
Charley could hear Hank yelling, “Eww, that’s disgusting! Look at Charley.” He didn’t realize what Hank was talking about until he reached the other side of the tree. He was covered in granules of the pollen. It was next to impossible to brush off the yellow snowflakes, so Charley resigned himself to his new pollen-encrusted coating.
Charley motioned to the others. “Well, come on! Just stay low to the ground—and hurry!”
The others made it through, and, unlike Charley, who had received the majority of the unfortunate pollination, they were relatively pollen-free. Charley took a deep breath. It was nice when things turned out to be easier than expected. He was pleased to be back in the lead.
Sandy caught up to him, breathing hard. “Well, look at you.” She picked a fleck of yellow pollen off of his chest and giggled. “You just look, quite literally, like the bee’s knees.”
He shook his head, trying to fight back a smirk, and motioned back to the others, attempting to regain the serene and composed look that would inspire confidence—the perfect picture of a calm, confident leader, trailblazing the way forward. Then he turned to face the path ahead.
A massive tangle of viny undergrowth parted to reveal an enormous swelling stalk that lifted like a snake off the jungle floor. Charley took a step back, awestruck. It rose to twice Charley’s height and throbbed with a strange kind of kinetic energy, its purple-splotched body, thicker than a man’s waist, pulsed and swayed, moving closer to Charley.
Eyes widening, Charley watched as the top of the stalk unfurled its head. Spiky thorns jutted like teeth from a deeply pink-flushed mouth
that yawned open, trembling: a man-sized trap ready to spring. He hurriedly unsheathed his blades, falling backward in the process. Quickly jumping up, he chanced a look behind him.
Sandy looked up at the monstrous plant, not commenting on Charley’s fall. “Now this thing has got to be carnivorous—look at those pincer-like spines. It’s like an enormous Venus flytrap.”
Hank rushed up, skidding to a stop. “It’s a Venus mantrap!” He looked over at Charley and snorted. “Maybe once Charley is done falling on the ground in fright, we can take it on.”
Charley, turning almost as pink as the plant’s saucer-shaped mouth that gaped open at them, retorted, “I’m not scared of a plant!”
“You should be,” Grigor said, still keeping a wild-eyed Orson restrained, while Sven and the others clustered behind him. “Many of the plants in the Bramble are likely poisonous; this one is no different. Look at all of that fluid flowing through that stalk.” Grigor collared Orson with one hand and gestured with the tip of an outstretched blade in his other hand. He too had drawn his weapon.
Charley looked closely at the stalk. It was a translucent light green with delicate little prickly hairs tickling outward. He could see a kind of fluid traversing through the plant’s veins.
“Well, we can’t go back.” Sandy looked over her shoulder. “The vines are closing in on us, and we are almost out of meat.”
“We are the meat now,” Charley muttered.
Sven moved from behind Grigor, a strange glint in his eyes. “We could use Orson as bait,” he piped up. He motioned toward Orson, seemingly in the throbs of an unnatural fever. Grigor kept him in a firm grip.
The familiar disgust with Orson’s former role as Commander and administrator of the System burbled up in Charley, but he choked down the bile. “As tempting as that is, we can’t. We need him to get to his father.” He knew that his desire for vengeance for Alec could only be slaked by the blood of Orson’s father; settling for Orson was too shortsighted, even for Charley.