“Kissing's for girls,” Roque said disdainfully.
“So what's for men?” Burn asked him. “Cursing?”
They all paused. “You know...” Desiree said.
So they tried it. “Damn you, Red Baron,” Roque swore, his hand on the cube. “I mean Red Cube.”
The red cube remained unmoved.
“Damn you, Red Cube,” Levi said. Still nothing.
“Damn you, Red Cube,” Speedo said.
The cube fell open. The minions cheered again.
Inside was a rolled up parchment. Roque fetched it and unrolled it. It was a multi-page map, as of the interior of a spaceship. Or the spherical Pod. Floor by floor.
One to go. They tried cursing the yellow cube, but it was impervious. What was the key?
For the next hour they tried different things, ranging from compliments to counting numbers, but nothing worked. The key to it did not seem to be verbal.
“These challenges were designed by children,” Quiti said. “Kisses and curses must have amused them. How would they conclude it?”
Burn laughed. “My brothers would simply throw a tantrum and smash it.”
They paused again. “I wonder,” Desiree said.
Quiti focused on the notion. “We have assumed that the rules require ingenuity, but we don't have rules, or at least not such restrictions. But suppose we smash it, and we're wrong? Does that mean that Earth is lost?”
“No such thing,” Roque said. “If we're wrong, smashing simply won't work, any more than kissing or cursing did singly. The cube will be invulnerable.”
Quiti looked around. The others slowly nodded.
She decided. “Bash it.”
“Find me a sledgehammer,” Roque said.
The sorceress glanced at the sexy werebitch who had intrigued Roque before. “Fetch it.”
“Do you have others?” Quiti asked. “This might have to be a concerted effort, like the kisses and curses.”
Soon minions brought eight sledgehammers. The men took theirs. The women struggled to lift theirs. Quiti was stronger than any ordinary woman or man, thanks to her hair, but she could barely heft hers. Did that mean she was going wrong, or that it was simply far more solid than it looked? She struggled valiantly to haul it to the cube.
“Ladies first,” Roque said.
The four women held their breaths and hauled up on the handles, managing to lift the hammers to the four sides of the cube and set them there. Did that count as smashing?
Then the four men coordinated. “Ready, set, HEAVE!” Roue said, and the four hammers swung up, over, and down on the four corners of the cube.
The thing smashed into yellow smithereens. They had done it! The sorceress and minions applauded.
Quiti got down on hands and knees and pawed frantically through the debris. And found an object. A key.
“A key?” she asked. “Not a command code?”
“A key to turn the master switch,” Burn said. “Why not?”
Why not, indeed. They had won through and gotten the prize.
“This concludes your Quest,” the sorceress said. “We have enjoyed it. It has been a rare experience for us all. We have seldom seen such wacky imagination.”
The ring of minions smiled. Some had vulpine teeth, some had fangs, and some had rotten or missing teeth, but the spirit was there. Behind them appeared an ogre, an ogress, and a dragon, also smiling in their fashions. They had become friends.
“Uh, thank you,” Quiti said faintly.
“And here is your audience response,” the sorceress said.
The castle chamber opened out like one of the cubes to reveal a vista the size of a galaxy, filled with amazingly diverse creatures. All were applauding, in their fashions, whether these were assorted sounds, patterns of light, or more exotic manifestations.
Then the scene dissolved, and they were back in the Hair Suite, hands linked around a table, all nine of them. They were safely home. They lurched to their feet to go for the toilet facilities, as they had been a day and a night effectively frozen in place. But Quiti caught a glimpse as she fled her chair.
On the table was a holographic representation of three items: a small glassy object, a multipage map, and a key. They had won the tools they needed.
Now all they had to do was save the world.
C
hapter 10
Pod
They rested for a day and night, recovering from the wonder of the galaxy. Tillo and Idola were thrilled that their fantasy game had worked out so well. They had followed every move, and were annoyed only that some of the real action, such as the encounter of the sorceress and her minions with the sorcerer and his minions, had occurred offstage where they couldn't see it. They suspected that was not entirely coincidence, but couldn't bring themselves to accuse Gena of complicity in her management of the details. Gena was, after all, Idola's mother, now in more than one sense. Everyone was satisfied with the outcome, however. Then they set up for the essential business: diverting the Pod.
“I visited with Charles Jones, the way station attendant,” Levi said. “He is essentially our galactic agent, since he discovered us. He says he may have something for us, once we save our planet.”
“Saving our plant should be enough for today,” Quiti said wryly.
“Maybe. Anyway, he explained that we go into the WormWeb as electronic impulses, and that works fine when we're dealing with similar visitors, as we were in the Magi Nation. We're all on the same basis; it's like a communal dream. But it's a different scene when we go to the Pod, because that's an actual physical ship, not a Web construct. It will seem more like a frozen garden to us, nothing moving except us. But if we trigger an alarm, then it will put a flycatcher on us. That could be mischief. It will use the same mini wormhole channels we do, and be equipped to cut us off if it catches us.”
Quiti felt a chill. “A flycatcher plant. It eats bugs, and we're the bugs. What happens if one of us gets cut off? Does he die?”
“No, merely separated from the Pod. He'll wake here, where he started. But his channel will be interrupted, and he won't be able to return to the Pod. He is booted from that scene.”
“Not killed or hurt? That's a relief.”
“Maybe,” Levi said. “But if all of us get booted, we won't be able to complete our mission. Then--”
“Earth is doomed,” she finished. “I get it. So we'll soon be dead anyway.”
“Yes. We'll have one chance at the Pod, make or break.”
“So we'd better be sure that one of us gets to the master switch and turns that key.”
“Yes. We'll all have to protect the key holder. He/she is the point of the mission.”
Quiti gazed at the holo image. “There's just one key?”
“Just one key,” Levi agreed. “It's special because it has to affect the Pod's guidance directive. We images just come and go, but the key's action is permanent.”
“So who carries the key?”
“We'd better vote on it.”
They voted, and decided to have Levi carry it. Burn was selected to invoke the wormhole locator; once they were in the Pod, that wouldn't matter. Quiti was chosen for the maps. They had all studied them, pretty well memorizing them, but they were complicated and there might be details they needed to verify in case of a change in their planned route.
Then they organized and cleared their bodies for what might be a long haul, and got settled around the table. They linked hands, except for three who had one elbow touched instead. Burn put her free hand on the image of the locator; Levi touched the image of the key; Quiti touched the maps. They closed their eyes and let Burn lead them to the Pod.
And they were there, in the center of it, on a long platform beside the giant bulb that turned on at measured intervals to emulate the sun and provide necessary light. It was off at the moment, fortunately, so it was night, with only dim illumination from what might be considered night lights. The floors were transparent spheres of increasing
diameter, lattices covered with green plants. They did not look particularly sinister, but of course they were largely dormant now, awaiting their chance to consume a planet. Rather, the sacs of spores they guarded would do that job.
Quiti wondered how plants had ever developed space technology. Maybe they had tamed animals to do the legwork, as it were. The maps indicated cells where some animals were stored frozen, in case their services were needed along the way. It was an efficient operation.
Quiti felt as if she were floating, which was hardly surprising; they were floating. Fortunately there were handholds and footholds or maybe vine-holds all along the platform. How was it they could feel gravity, or the lack of it, in their electronic form? But they had felt it in the fantasy game, so it must be part of the condition.
“We're here,” Burn said. “My job is done. I'm expendable, if it should come to that.”
“Then you can be my bodyguard,” Levi said. “To make sure I make it through to the master switch.”
“Which is where?” Burn asked Quiti.
“To review what you all know,” Quiti said, knowing that not all of them had really studied the maps. “The Pod is about ten miles in diameter, with a radius of five miles. It has twenty four largely transparent shells spaced about a thousand feet apart, anchored by stout conic ladders that hold them firmly in place.” She gestured at the nearest ladder cone. “The sphere is spinning, to make artificial gravity, which is slight close in toward the center, about Earth normal at the twelfth level, and formidable at the outer rim. To the sides the effect is weaker, and the east and west axes are essentially null-gravity. The master control chamber is in the middle of the twelfth level. The obvious route to it is straight down the center cone, riding one of their carts. It's about two and a half miles out, but we can readily coast to it.”
“But,” Roque said with a slow smile.
“But the Pod plants can't be entirely naive about possible intrusions,” Quiti said. “They'll have alerts along that route. Once we set off an alarm, we're in trouble. So we'd better be indirect, so they don't know our objective. I recommend going to the end of the axis of rotation, to the twelfth level, then working our way cautiously in toward the master chamber, in a meandering route.”
“And if we set off an alarm?”
“Depends on how close to the objective we are. If we're close, dash for it. If not, lead them a spread out chase, hoping they can't catch us all, and that Levi will be able to sneak into the control chamber and do the deed.”
“Like diverting the ogre,” Levi said. “The master switch is like the princess in the tower, only probably with shorter hair.”
“Even so,” Quiti agreed. “If you are being chased, we can try tag team, with others running between you and the flycatcher, in an effort to divert it. Remember, We are all expendable except you.”
“Naturally,” Levi agreed.
“We could spread out now,” Burn pointed out.
“No,” Quiti said. “That would just increase the chances of someone triggering a hidden alarm. Best to stay together, hoping to avoid any alarm, but ready to spread out if we do trigger one.”
“We may need weapons,” Speedo said. “Knives would be good.”
They checked supply pods, and did find some tools with cutting edges. Pruning might be needed on occasion, so the plants had the blades. They were awkward compared to knives or swords, but would do. Each person took one.
They took a cart mounted on a column to the side, along the axis of rotation. Its small wheels were hooked into a channel so that it would not float away. All they had to do was push and coast.
“I just had a nasty notion,” Desiree murmured to Quiti as they rolled along. “Suppose there's a silent alarm?”
“Sh—ucks!” Quiti swore, glancing at the children. “I never thought of that.”
“We'll just have to hope there isn't.”
“Yes.”
They passed shell after shell, each one marked with a symbol that was surely a number. Quiti kept count, and when they reached the twelfth she touched the brake and the cart slowed to a halt. They were at the right level, with no sign of an alarm yet.
The level had mostly storage containers fastened like seedpods to the floor, with narrow walkways leading at right angles to the axis. “Hold on,” Quiti warned. “Gravity will increase as we go, and if you slip and fall, you'll just slip and slide faster and faster.”
They moved carefully, using the handholds. As they progressed, gravity slowly increased, and they changed their orientation to put their feet in the down direction. Potted plants appeared, tentacular things spread out toward the sunshine when it was on. All were motionless, as plants generally seem to be, but they were probably also in some dormant state, awaiting their arrival at a planet. Just looking at them made Quiti nervous. There were also many bulb-like blobs, surely the spores.
The slow curve of the shell brought them gradually to increasingly level terrain, so they could walk vertically, their heads toward the center. The size of the plants increased, and their variety. Their colors were not completely clear in the gloom, but there seemed to be a fair variety.
Then the sun turned on. Day had come, and suddenly the colors were phenomenal. It was actually quite lovely, like a botanic garden of exotic flowers, which actually was not far from the case. It was too bad that they were coming not to enhance Earth, but to consume it.
They were getting close to the master chamber. Soon their mission would be accomplished.
And an alarm sounded, a sort of eerie whistling. “Damn!” Quiti swore. “We've been made.”
“Are we close enough?” Levi asked.
“Maybe. It's only about a quarter mile away.”
They hurried as a group toward the master chamber. But now the flytrap manifested. It was a huge plant with jawed extensions, and it was able to move along the pathways of the shell. It was not as fast as the humans, but it stood athwart a key nexus. A second one stood on an alternate route, and a third. They were surrounded. Once the trap was sprung, it was thorough.
Roque took over. “Attack the nearest flycatcher; cut its stems and roots. Throw it overboard.”
They swarmed the nearest flycatcher. It seemed surprised, to the extent a plant could; evidently its prey normally tried to flee, not attack. They sliced at anything they could reach, especially the clawed stems. One claw fell, then another. Then one root too many was severed, and the plant lost its hold on the ledge and slowly slid to one side. Victory!
But as it fell, it swung out with its remaining claws, and caught Speedo and Desiree, who were working together. It dropped into the void, hauling them with it, as the claws crunched into their bodies. They didn't even have time to scream before they were gone.
“It's not death!” Quiti cried. “Merely separation. They're just out of the raid.”
“But it feels like death,” Idola said tearfully. She was right.
Seven of them were through this pass, but at a price. What could they do but go on?
They ran in the direction of the master chamber. More flycatchers blocked their way. They changed into one, this time battering its main stem directly, dislodging it from its hold on the ledge. That worked, but so did its countermeasure. It caught Gena and Idola and carried them down with it. Two more gone.
Their remaining party of five ran on, but every path was blocked by a flycatcher. “We'll do it,” Roque cried, and he and Speedo dived at the plant. They caught it around its central stem, stabbing it, and succeeded in dislodging it, but again at their own cost. They had sacrificed themselves for the sake of the mission.
Three remained: Levi, Tillo, and Quiti. They were now in sight of the chamber, which was open; it seemed that plants did not have the concept of closed doors. One narrow crossing was before them, and it was blocked by a flycatcher.
“It's up to us, son,” Quiti told the boy.
“Right, mom.”
“The hell!” Levi said. “Damned if I'll let women
and children sacrifice themselves for me.” He charged the flycatcher, reaching it before they did.
The impact had effect; the plant was dislodged. But as it toppled it caught hold of Levi with one claw, and Tillo with another. Only Quiti, third to arrive, was spared.
“Do it!” Levi called, and tossed the key to her as he and the boy were dragged down.
She caught it. “But--”
But they were gone.
No help for it. She ran on into the master enclosure, wielding the key. There was a screen showing a planet that had to be Earth, framed in green. Below it was the keyhole. Why should plants use keys when they didn't use doors? Because all this was symbolic; it wasn't really a key, and that wasn't really a keyhole. But the situation was similar.
She jammed the key into the keyhole and turned it.
The picture of Earth didn't change, but the framing turned red. That was all.
Had she succeeded?
A flycatcher stood at the entrance behind her. Quiti tried to avoid it, but a stem shot out and a claw closed on her arm. The stem yanked her into the plant, and other claws clamped on her other limbs as she was drawn up against the main stem. Was she about to be raped by a plant?
Then one claw closed on her head.
*
She found herself back in the Hair Suite, the others surrounding her. “Welcome home!” Roque said, seeing her animate. “Did you do it?”
“I don't know,” she said somewhat dizzily. “I turned the key, and the indication changed, but I can't be sure that was it, and if it was, the flycatcher was right there and probably turned the setting back to ON.”
“We can find out,” Levi said. “The lines to the Pod may be cut off, but not the one to the WormWeb. Come on.”
They made a quick circle around the table, linking hands, and Levi connected to the Web. They were in the way station office.
“Congratulations on saving your planet,” Charles Jones said.
“Did we save it?” Quiti demanded. “We tried, but were caught in the act. The flycatcher was right there, and the key was still in the switch.”
Jones smiled. “All flycatchers know how to do is catch flies. They are good at that, but they don't know peas about objectives.”
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