Lord Samhain's Night (6 page)

Not bad. Even without regular weapons they might come out of this intact.

Thus far, in fact, the adventure had been so safe it was boring, but she was sure that couldn't last.

"This is hard."

Flig looked down. Tor seemed to have got a plant with a larger bifurcation but she was still struggling with the changes.

"Just pull free. We've got to get out of the crowd to see what's really here. There could be all kind of monsters. Leaf rollers as big as your head!"

Tor went as still as all the rest. "Why can't we stay here until they suck us back?"

Flig bent his head right against Tor's so that the words wouldn't be sent back to Verdamonde. "Because we're brave explorers, moss-brain. Everyone's watching, and what we do will decide our fates. Do you want to go back to your favorite rooting grounds, your offshoots and your food, or do you want to start from scratch again out in the scrub?"

"They couldn't do that!"

Flig pushed her petals hard against Tor's. "You haven't figured this out, have you? We're supposed to fail. We're supposed to look stupid. Sure the technique works but we'll get no credit for that. We have to be brave. We have to be bold. We have to make contact, or at least discover something useful, or when we get back we'll be nothing but bug-fodder."

Too late Flig realized this wasn't the way to inspire a gardocyne. Any bugwort would be checking weapons and quivering to be off after a speech like that, but a gardocyne came from a long seedline of safely growing to massive dimensions.

"I can't be brave," Tor said. "I might as well simply stay here and rot." She began to sink her roots back into the earth.

Flig worked on a cheerful tone. "Of course not. No one would expect it. That's why I'm here, remember. To protect you. But you have to come along with me, Tor, for the look of things."

She got a leaf under one of Tor's and tried pushing up. "I haven't seen anything here to trouble us and the scientists seem to have got it right. We look like one of the most common life-forms, and there's so many of them there can't be any serious predators. It's going to be easy. In fact, our greatest problem here is going to be making it look good back home."

Tor muttered something, but she wriggled back out of the earth. "Lead on then. Unless," she said nervously, "you think the danger will come from behind."

"There is no danger, Tor. Think about it. Would all these others be just standing soaking up the sun if there was a problem?"

"I suppose not."

Tor made no more complaint as they edged through the silent plants. Soaking up the sun. That's what they were doing. But why? And for how long?

Flig stopped being polite since no one paid any attention. Gardocynes were exquisitely polite, however, so Tor continued to apologize every time she brushed leaves. Flig plotted a course that avoided the seeding ones. Tor would die of embarrassment.

Then the crowd suddenly ended. Flig stopped to assess. A strip of barren earth stretched between them and another mass of plants which looked identical to the one they were a part of.

Even Tor was shocked enough to come forward to the edge of the terrible bare, grey earth. "What could have caused that? I'm not walking on that. My roots would rot."

"Don't worry. We'll walk along this edge and go around it."

Flig too was almost shuddering at the sight. Earth incapable of supporting life. What had happened? Some totally new kind of fungus? Selective drought? Some monstrous pest eating a path through here?

Then the earth began to shake.

"Flig!" wailed Tor, and Flig grabbed her and dragged her back among the crowd. She looked to either side but saw no sign of fear. That didn't reassure her at all. Perhaps these plants were all slaves, subject to some terrible mind control.

Enormous objects come crashing along the barren land. They were stubby roots of some enormous plant that rose up to the sun. Or stubby feet of a terrible bug.

"It's not fair," moaned Tor. "I want to be big too."

The thing stopped.

"Shut up," Flig whispered.

A strange pinkish leaf came down, down, toward Tor. Flig raised her gun, hating to draw the thing's attention, but ready to die to defend.

The thing brushed past Tor and grabbed one of the nearby crowd.  Seconds later tattered bits of the yellow head drifted onto the blasted earth and the thing stamped on its way.

Both Flig and Tor looked around, expecting some reaction now. Rage. Grief. Some care for the naked, bleeding stem.

But the crowd kept on soaking up the sun.

"No predators," shouted Tor, quivering with shock. "No predators! What was that then? A thing as big as me back home and here I am a midget. It's not fair. We should have come as something big like that-"

"Shut up," said Flig and hobbled over to the ravaged plant. There was little fluid loss, but it couldn't survive without a head. Ripped right off. She looked again at the plants all around.

"Do you know what," she said slowly. "I don't think these things are..." She didn't know how to express the strange notion that had come into her brain.

"Are what?"

"Like us."

"Of course they're not like us. This is another planet. Or do I have to remind you of that? We've taken their shapes, that's all, but they have no dignity, no soul. They're horrible, stupid, and
small
."

"I mean they are
really
not like us." Flig went over to another plant. It was the hardest thing she'd ever done, but she brutally wrapped a leaf around its stem and squeezed. Sticky sap oozed, the smell making her feel sick, and slowly the head began to droop.

"Flig. Are you mad!" screamed Tor, stumbling over. "Stop it. Stop it. Oh, I am sorry," she said to the plant, trying to push the head back up. "We will make reparation. I don't know what but we will..."

Flig let go. "Don't waste the effort, Tor. They don't have a brain."

"No brain? How could they live?"

"Just suck up fluid, take in light, make seeds..."

"What's the point of that?"

"Not much. Verdamonde's not going to get very far with trade treaties, is it?"

Tor looked at the wounded plant. "They have to have a brain. I tell you what, they've been enslaved! What are we going to do about it?"

Gardocynes were not brave, but they had a strong sense of moral duty, especially as others had to carry out their crusades. Flig hoped that the noble declaration was playing well back home, since this exploration was not going to achieve its original aim. She looked for ways to increase their chances of honorable return.

"We must ask for instructions from our great ruler," she said in an inspiring tone. "Surely Verdamonde must help these poor creatures achieve their true destiny!"

She counted the beats necessary for their message to cut through space, and for the response to land on them.

"O brave Flig and mighty Tor," boomed the ruler's voice. "Our sap gushes with sympathy for these unfortunate creatures. Do not fear that we will abandon them or you. Even now we are assembling a force to come to aid you in this noble battle. Volunteers flock to the transmitters outraged by the cruelty you have revealed. You, Gardocyne Tordemayne, and you, Flig the Bugwort, are appointed leaders of this rescue mission. The bravest and the biggest. Who better could there be? Soon the inhabitants of that oppressed planet will be free to live as plants should, free to move, free to defend themselves, free to shape their own destinies..."

Flig looked at Tor to see how she was taking this but these atrocities seemed to have stirred her beyond her innate caution.

"But they must be big, great ruler," Tor declared, head high. "The pink predators are huge, as big as a gardocyne, faster moving, and cruel as a gardocyne could never be. Make them ten times our size, and broad to match."

"Twenty times," Flig interrupted, "and with longer bifurcations on the roots, great ruler, so we can move more speedily. You must change us, too, or we could never command."

"It is all being planned as you say, our noble heroes."

"And well armed," Flig said while the going was good. "The minerals here can be shaped into weapons. Send us enough essence to make bugzappers of suitably enormous size."

"Enormous," moaned Tor in delight. "But I don't think I can use a weapon, Flig."

"Carry one for show."

Tor's leaves were drooping. "Perhaps there's only one of those things."

Flig almost said, "I hope not," but remembered and said, "Perhaps. But these creatures will need our protection for a long time to come."

A new world.

Once they'd rid this place of the huge oppressors, perhaps there would be no need of trade. Flig still thought these plants weren't like them. Perhaps they had been once, but now.... She didn't think they could ever look after themselves.

They would need a ruler....

A strange feeling swept over her, and then like a
pop
! The transformation came through and she was looking down on a mass of mindless yellow heads, with a scattering of the white seeders among them. She looked out over greenery and trees, all, it would seem, beaten down to rock-like stupidity. Despite their oppression, much of the growth was lush, indicating rich soil, ample sun, and reliable water.

A world for the taking. A world wasted on this floppy-heads.

Her long bifurcated roots worked properly now, able to carry her at speed, and a substantial bugzapper formed along one leaf. All around her Verdamondians appeared, laughing at their strange new form, but flourishing their weapons, ready to destroy the tyrants.

And then down the strip of blasted earth, Flig saw one of the monsters coming.

Horrible. Horrible. Not a scrap of green to it. A pest. Definitely a pest, with four pink limbs and a big round head.

At sight of her, a mouth opened and a screech came out.

Not so brave now, was it?

"Attack!" cried Flig, conqueror of the new world.

I told you it was odd, didn’t I?

Stories like this come when I let my muse out to play.

 Penguin-NAL,  February 2011 in print and e-book.

(Lord Dracy, a scarred ex-naval officer, has just won a race between his mare Cartagena and the Earl of Hernescroft’s Fancy Free. As winner, he gets both horses, but he wants one of the earl’s stallions instead.)

“Come in, Dracy, come in,” said the earl. “Claret, brandy, port?”

“Claret, thank you,” Dracy said, noting that the footman had left and the earl was serving the wine. So, a private discussion.

He’d studied all available information about the Earl of Hernescroft. Though portly and ruddy faced, he was in excellent health. His heir, Viscount Pranksworth, was thirty-two years old and already father of two sons, so the line seemed safe. If that branch failed, the earl had three other sons, one in the army, one in the navy, and one a Town idler.

There were also two daughters, both well married.

Or in one case, widowed, Dracy remembered, and stained by scandal. An image of a laughing face and fiery hair shot through his mind like a shooting star. He blanked it out. This was no time to be distracted by a highborn doxy.

Dracy took the crystal glass and raised it. “To fine horses and fine races, my lord.”

The earl raised his glass and repeated the toast. “Have a seat, Dracy. I’ve a matter to discuss with you.”

Very promising. Dracy sat in one upholstered chair and the earl took the other.

“I play, I pay,” Hernescroft said, “but there are methods of payment. Would you consider accepting a prize of equal value?”

Dracy took another sip of wine so as not to snatch the prize too quickly. “I would be churlish not to consider it, sir. Another horse, you mean?”

“Another horse?” Hernescroft’s pouchy eyes narrowed.

Not another horse?

“What else, to be of equal value?”

“I don’t have another mare to compare with Fancy Free, and I’d not offer less.”

“So you mean a stallion?” Dracy did his best to pretend surprise. “I recollect that you do have two of quality.”

His acting ability wasn’t up to the job.

“Damn me! Was that your game? Gosling-go, I assume.” The earl pulled a face. “Won’t play, Dracy. Took exception to something a few days back and tried to kick down his stall. Broke his hock. Had to be shot.”

“Dead,” Dracy said, trying to conceal the blow. He should have kept himself better informed, but even a few days ago the die had been cast. “Most unfortunate, my lord. I heard nothing of it.”