by Paul Kidd
At the end of the tongue, the plant was holding something slimy. It was another little, green cupboard—the exact twin of the one from the crashed ship. The plant placed the unit on the grass then withdrew its tongue. It sat happily back with its mouth shut, making a vast, toothy grin.
Was it a trap? Something to lure Xoota into attack range? But the plant could already have attacked; it had a good deal of reach with its tendrils. A second and third bulblike head, each with its own toothy mouth, sprouted from the central trunk. As far as three-headed monsters went, it was being rather well behaved.
“Okay …” Xoota edged closer. She took up the little, alien box from the grass and opened the door.
Inside she saw the broken stick tipped with three green leaves.
Minutes later, Xoota was happily playing with the cupboards. The enormous plant handed her a fruit. She put the fruit into one cupboard and teleported it to the other. She then shut the door again and teleported the fruit back into the first container. The effect was ludicrously pleasing. The plant handed her another item—a river rock. They both watched it go from one cupboard to the other in satisfaction.
“Excellent.” Xoota sat back and drank from her canteen, eying the plant. “What the hell do you eat, anyway?”
The plant opened one of its other mouths and revealed one of the flying fish. The creature was already half digested. The plant snapped its jaws shut and beamed.
Xoota was impressed. “Oh, wacko.”
Some time later Xoota came plodding from the jungle, carrying the two alien cupboards in a string bag. Behind her, the plant trundled along on a mass of walking root clusters. It was carrying two control chairs and a window taken from the crashed ship.
Benek and Shaani had finished loading their charcoal and were waiting for Xoota. When she approached, she saw Shaani inspecting the gardening robot. Benek leaped to his feet in shock as he saw the massive plant. Shaani jerked at his motion and hit her head, emerging from beneath the robot, rubbing her skull. When she focused her eyes on Xoota, she waved.
“Oh, hallo.”
“Hi.” Xoota jerked a thumb at the plant. “He keeps following me.”
“Perhaps he’s feeling peckish?”
“No, no. He had fish for dinner.” Xoota sat down and regarded the plant, which swiveled this way and that, appearing to look around. “Do carnivorous plants eat much?”
“Not really. My sources say it’s more of a mineral supplement than anything else. They need soil.”
The plant seemed to actually be quite useful. It was titanic; its tendrils stretched quite a few meters when it waved them around, and its jaws could easily chomp on a small sheep. Shaani adjusted her glasses and looked the creature over, fearlessly climbing between the tendrils to inspect the creature’s mouths. It obligingly gaped a set of jaws for her and let her poke around.
“Well, it seems friendly enough.” The rat inspected the plant’s shiny, handsome stalks. “It’s in very good condition.”
“Why do you think it’s following me?”
“Well, it’s clearly sentient. Maybe it’s lonely.” The rat rested an elbow nonchalantly on the plant’s jaws. “It’s the only intelligent, native creature on the whole plateau.”
Xoota shrugged. “Well, it’s making itself handy.” The quoll dragged the alien boxes over to the rat. “It brought me this. Teleport units, one to the other. Close the doors and bing.”
“Ooh, spiffy.”
“I have no idea what to use it for, but it’s pretty neat.” Xoota demonstrated. “You don’t have to have the doors closed on the receiving unit. But closing the doors on the sending unit seems to trigger it all off. Did you have any joy with the robot?”
“Not as such.” The rat looked tired, dirty, and puzzled.
“Watch this.”
She was wearing a blue bracelet taken from one of the long-dead bodies in the forest. Shaani held up her wrist so the robot could see it. “Robot, report.”
“Unit G6, Bliss Acres. Fully functional. No stores in hoppers.” The voice of a patient elderly man came from a speaker on the robot.
Shaani nodded. “Robot, identify me.”
“Identity level 2, military.”
The rat pointed a finger. “Robot, please go that way for ten meters.”
“Negative. Requires password or civil maintenance ID level 3 or above.”
The lab rat waved her wrist toward Xoota. “He won’t listen. I can’t budge him. When I try dragging him, he fights me.” Shaani sighed. “But we do now know these bracelets are identifiers of some kind. The higher the rank, the greater the number of stripes.”
It was not a total loss. The ID bracelets might be useful. The mammals all took one. Shaani watched the robot heading back into its shed and shook her head in annoyance.
They headed back to the path, lugging their baskets of charcoal. The plant lumbered along behind them, still dragging the chairs and windows from the ancient ship. When they reached the path, Xoota set down her load and waved to the plant in thanks.
“Um, thank you. It’s all right. We can take them from here.”
The plant seemed confused.
Xoota cleared her throat. “It’s okay. We don’t need to bother you anymore. You can—well, you know—go back to the jungle or whatever.”
The plant hung its toothy heads, looking sad and dejected. It then gathered up the chairs and pointed up the path toward the waterfall.
Shaani came over and made a noise of sympathy. “Aww, I think it wants to come with us.”
“Shaani, he’s a giant carnivorous plant.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s not a worthwhile person.” The lab rat tickled the vast plant under one toothy chin. “What’s up? Are you a bit lonely up here?”
Xoota wriggled on the hook. “Shaani. How are we going to keep it? What if it eats us all in the night?”
“It won’t eat us. We’ll just remember to keep it fed.” The rat cosseted the plant, which clearly liked the attention. “We can make a tub of compost for him to stand in. He can sleep down in the hold.”
Xoota shook her head, giving in. “If it eats my budgerigar, I’ll chop it into kindling.”
“It’ll be fine. Anyway, we could use an extra hand on the crew. Well, an extra tentacle. Or vine …” said Shaani as she led the way off to the waterfall. “Right, on we go. Last leg and all that.”
The sunset was spreading glorious mauve and orange fingers all across the sky. The crew of the Sand Shark made their way gratefully up the path, toward Wig-wig and the beautiful swimming hole next to the waterfall. They could swim, get clean, wash clothing, eat fruit. Xoota looked up to the cool curtain of the waterfall and smiled.
A thought came into her mind.
“Shaani, do you think the teleporter might be a way to get water to the ship? You know, send it load by load to the tanks?”
“I suppose it must have enough range.” The rat was black as soot from head to toe. “Now that is a sterling idea.” She clapped Xoota on the shoulder.
Wig-wig welcomed them with a fruit fest and a joyous dance as they all returned to him. The crew of the Sand Shark—plus one three-headed carnivorous plant—sat down to eat, to relax, and watch the desert turn slowly soft and cool with night.
Hours later, sitting on a rock together, wet, clean, and fed, Xoota and Shaani watched the new moon rise. The quoll lay with her head pillowed in her arms, waggling her pink feet. Shaani lay back and enjoyed the sight of the fish flying through the trees.
Behind them, the plant played with Wig-wig. They seemed to have become good friends. Xoota rolled her head to watch the weird pair at play and gave a sigh. “We do seem to collect the weirdest strays.”
The rat held aloft a finger. “True science is simply the gift of having an open mind.”
“Is that a quote?”
“If you want to quote it. I made it up.” The rat sighed.
Back at the waterfall, Wig-wig was using the plant’s leaves as springboards, bouncing up and down on
it like a trampoline.
Xoota regarded the plant with a frown. “Shaani, what are we going to call the plant? I mean, we can’t just keep calling it ‘The Plant.’ ”
“Well, he has leaves. Let’s call him Rustle.”
The quoll nodded. “That seems fair.”
Repairs took three more long days. The foremast was heaved back up into position. Xoota and her amazing prehensile appendages reaved blocks and spliced cables. Shaani piled rocks and mud laboriously taken from the plateau and made a makeshift forge. With bellows worked by the tireless Rustle, she stripped to her waist and heated up the brackets for the wheel mount. She bent the metal back into shape, the noise ringing out for hour after hour across the desert sands. Hauling the wheel up into place took the efforts of everyone aboard the ship. Even Wig-wig helped, crawling over all the others and exhorting them to mighty efforts. The earwigs then swarmed over the new coupling, splicing electric cables and hydraulics. Shaani made a last few welds, using her own self-generated sparks to arc weld brackets into place. She pushed up her dark goggles and looked over the results, feeling well pleased.
The Sand Shark was in fine shape. She had tanks filled with fresh water, thanks to the little teleporter units. The ship had a load of sun-dried fruit, dried flying fish, and dried chips made from polka-dotted bananas. With the wheels and running gear repaired, they were finally ready to go. What was more, they could make a cup of tea in the kitchen and teleport it straight through to the teleportation cubby in the control cabin. After so long stuck in the sands, the Sand Shark was once again in running trim.
As dawn slowly lit the eastern skies, the ship set sail once more. Xoota backed the ship slowly out of the sand heap, all eight wheels working perfectly. She drove around the massive sky island until wind came blowing past the hull. The main and fore gaff-topsails rose up the masts. The tall ship creaked as the masts took the strain with ease. Shaani watched it all with a discerning eye. She signaled to Benek and Rustle, who hauled ropes to raise the topsails and bright, triangular jibs. The wheels hummed as the ship’s speed built, and she leaned beautifully into the breeze. With her deck tilting and her course running smooth, the Sand Shark headed northeast, speeding out across the desert sands.
It was damned good to be moving again.
They sailed the sands by day, rolling along beneath a flawless desert sky. Each dawn saw them sailing through the blue world of predawn, the desert breeze sharp and smelling of dust and cool, clean sands. They rode along the lines of dunes, climbing up and speeding down, up and down, the electric motors carrying her in the wind shadow of the valleys. After three days, they emerged onto flatter, red sands with a sparkle of quartz. Familiar stands of withered grass and smoke bush dotted the parched ground. The ship rode fine and fast along the ground, putting long kilometers behind her.
The crew had sorted themselves out into a comfortable life. Shaani and Xoota took turns driving. Wig-wig ran inspections of the rigging and the hull systems. Even Benek occasionally took part, taking charge of the nighttime guard.
Rustle the plant seemed perfectly at ease with the whole strange voyage. He set up camp in the hold beside Budgie, often sitting in a tub of dirt and leafing through any books that held pictures. But his favorite place was on the deck, right up behind the control cabin. He loved to ride along with one of his heads sticking over the side of the ship, his face to the wind and his tongue hanging out. He was strong enough to raise entire sails without using winches, and seemed to have a knack for understanding Shaani’s nautical babble. In the evening, he folded himself up inside his own leaves to sleep, looking as peaceful as a baby.
A three-headed, carnivorous baby …
They spent long days sailing across the sands, with Shaani carefully noting course and speed. Evenings were whiled away beneath the aurora australis, with Shaani playing a tin whistle while the earwigs danced. The days blended one into the other, turning into a pleasurable blur.
Late at night, Shaani drew lines on maps, jotting sums onto a pad of homemade paper. Xoota lay in bed and watched her taking care of them, tirelessly working her magic to keep her ship on course.
They were in good hands. Xoota smiled and went to sleep.
On a morning where Xoota’s alpha mutation had left her covered with quills that perforated her damned bedding and made her usual clothes unwearable, the ship came up to a strange, straight line drawn through the sand.
Xoota messed around with an old blanket, trying to make herself some sort of covering that might last the day. Wig-wig came scuttling in thorough the windows, waving his little feet in hello.
“Hi-hi, spotty quoll.”
“Hello, Wig-wig.” Xoota ended up belting her makeshift clothing with rope and string. “What’s up?”
“Something is in the way. Shaani say you should come and see.”
“I’ll be right there.” Boots were out of the question, so Xoota had to content herself with rope sandals. “Damn it. Okay, I’m coming.”
The quoll tromped her way forward to the control cabin and swung inside to find Shaani at the wheel, cautiously slowing the ship.
Xoota squinted at the visible line drawn across the nearby desert, trying to make sense of the sight.
Shaani flicked her a quick glance. “Eww. Quills?”
“Yeah, I know, I know.” Xoota grumbled. There was some omega ale left; if she drank the stuff, it might hasten a change into something more convenient. “What’s this?”
“Not sure. Benek spotted it.” Shaani changed course to close with the line at a shallower angle. “Whatever it is, it’s straight and level.”
Xoota made her way up on deck, passing by Rustle. Her damned quills were rattling as she walked. She found her binoculars and climbed the rigging, careful not to puncture any sails.
The line was a long, straight pipe. Concrete supports kept up above the sand. It emerged from beneath the earth a few kilometers to the west and stretched on for several kilometers to the east.
Shaani brought the Sand Shark to a halt some distance from the giant pipe, and lowered the sails.
The pipe was solid, perhaps a meter in diameter. Apparently it had been uncovered by the ongoing shifting of the sands. Xoota had to forgo armor. She took her crossbow, magical go-away stick, and pistol and jumped down onto the sands. Wig-wig joined her, fanning out around her to scout for enemies.
They came to the pipe, a vast piece of engineering that seemed to run forever. It never bowed, sagged, or cracked. It simply stood there, a half meter above the desert. Xoota reached out with one hand and gently touched the surface of the pipe. She found it strangely cool.
She laid her ear against the pipe, listening. Her heart soared.
Water.
It was the pipe. The pipe. She looked around to find Shaani jogging toward her. “Shaani, it’s the water pipe. It has to be.”
The rat touched the pipe, listened with her ear against it, and smiled, her pink eyes alive with joy. She pulled out her navigation notes and spread them on the side of the pipe, totting up the numbers. “The numbers fit. This must be it. This goes west all the way to Watering Hole …”
The binoculars showed a hatch or blister on the top of the pipe perhaps a thousand meters away. The women returned to the ship, raised sails, and drifted the ship along beside the pipe. They drew up next to the hatch. The big plant and Benek peered over the side in interest as Xoota and Shaani jumped down onto the pipe and inspected the hatch. The thing was dogged down with a simple handle, but it was locked with a rusted padlock. Xoota took a crowbar and snapped off the lock. She covered the hatch with her crossbow as Shaani lifted the lid.
The sound of running water came up out of the pipe.
The pipe was clean and smooth inside. A great many power conduits were affixed to the inner walls, all utterly useless. Water gushed along the pipe, half filling it. It had a distinctly salty smell.
Shaani affixed a cup to a stick and lowered it down into the water. She pulled the cup back out,
sniffed it carefully, and tasted it. She immediately spit it out. “Salt. It tastes far worse than before, utterly undrinkable.”
Darwin help Watering Hole, Xoota thought.
“This problem needs to be fixed and fixed fast.” Shaani looked off toward the west, clearly worried for the people who depended on the water. She stood up, cricking her back, when suddenly a bell began to ring.
Rustle was enthusiastically ringing the ship’s alarm bell. He snapped his jaws in panic. Shaani flicked a look upward, and saw two huge, winged serpent shapes tumbling toward them from the sky.
Xoota saw them too. She instantly drew a bead and fired her crossbow at the leader. “Down! Everybody, down!”
The attackers made a dive at the masts, roaring through insectile mandibles that clashed hungrily. Long lines of lightning arced from eyes set deeply in their feline heads. How they didn’t set their own fur-covered bodies on fire, Xoota did not know, but it made her worry they might be fireproof. One pair of beams reflected off of Benek’s armor and gouged lines of fire across the deck. Shaani, equipped with her own mutant power, pointed her hand at the second monster and shot a bright line of radiation into its flank. The monster lurched aside, which caused its deadly rays to miss Xoota by a hair’s breadth. Both monsters soared back upward, gaining height, far outdistancing the ship’s crossbow fire.
Xoota stood and stared. “Was that a ray gun? Do they have ray guns?”
Shaani ran for the ship. “No, probably just mutations.”
“Well, that’s much better.” Xoota swore. “Get that fire out. Hurry.”
Benek was scorched and dazed. Xoota clambered back aboard her ship and hurled a bucket to Rustle, who was avoiding the fires on deck.
“Sand! Use sand.” Xoota drew her pistol, readying to fire. “We’ll see how they like a death ray right in the chops.”
Shaani grabbed Benek, checked him in passing, then flung herself onto the ship’s catapult. She began frantically working the loading crank. Shaani grabbed a bomb and simply bit off the fuse with her chisel teeth.