Emperor Mollusk Versus The Sinister Brain

by A. Lee Martinez

  I waved to the little ones, hoping the gesture translated into something friendly.

  “You’re enjoying this,” said Zala.

  “Perhaps a bit.”

  “Just don’t allow yourself to become careless, Emperor. We can’t afford to…”

  Her voice trailed off as we rounded a block and found ourselves before a giant statue carved in my likeness. It wasn’t my biggest statue on Terra. Nor particularly well sculpted. But it did look like me in the broadest strokes.

  We dismounted to get a closer look.

  “Where did that come from?” asked Zala.

  “The taller buildings must’ve hidden it,” I said.

  The statue’s base was the immense rock formation from which it was carved. It was covered with strange pictographs.

  “Behold, the Great Stone!” declared Hiss while whipping back and forth.

  The lowest carvings were primitive in design, little more than squiggly lines. But the glyphs grew more sophisticated as one’s eyes moved up the stone. Near the top, the scene of our arrival, with the Stalks surrounding us, was apparent for all to see.

  “This is absurd,” said Zala.

  “You have to admit that it’s a striking resemblance,” I said.

  “Of course it is, Emperor. The Brain could easily have set this up.”

  “Easily,” I agreed. “But why? And if not, how? These are also questions worth asking.”

  She narrowed her glittering eyes. “Don’t tell me that you believe any of this.”

  “No, not really. Although if I ran an analysis on the carvings, I could probably date their original creation and be sure.”

  “Only you would need scientific confirmation that you weren’t a messiah.”

  “Never hurts to double-check,” I replied.

  The cavern city of the Stalks rumbled. Squealing, they ran in all directions.

  “Behold! The Great Gynoecium rises!” shouted Hiss.

  The ground burst, and a purple-and-yellow thing rose like a tower of writhing vegetable matter. Its head, so to speak, was a ring of barbed petals and snapping thorns. It pounced on the muck beast, and the poor creature was devoured in the Gynoecium’s grinding jaws.

  “Good luck, savior,” called Hiss as he fled, flipping end over end. “Though I’m sure you won’t need it.”

  The terrible vegetable turned its dark, unblinking eyes upon us.

  16

  The Gynoecium attempted to scoop us up into its jaws. Zala jumped to one side, and I used my jetpack to take to the air. It caught Snarg, but her armor proved too tough for its whirling teeth. It struggled to choke her down while Snarg clung to the colorful petals.

  I regrouped by Zala’s side. She didn’t shoot at the thing, allowing Snarg to serve as a distraction.

  “Any idea how to kill that with what we have?” she asked.

  “I’d rather not kill it,” I said.

  “You don’t really believe in that prophecy, do you?”

  “No, but I have this reluctance to destroy unique life-forms,” I said. “Or are we in for a repeat of the mesmersaurus incident?”

  Zala and I moved to one side as a root smashed the ground where we had stood only moments before.

  “You killed the jelligantic without hesitation,” she said.

  “Not the same thing. I can always make another of those.”

  “But you won’t.”

  “Probably not,” I replied.

  She glared.

  “This isn’t the best time to have this discussion,” I said.

  The Gynoecium abandoned its efforts to swallow Snarg. It spit her, along with several gallons of green bile, onto the ground. Then it convulsed, regurgitating several Stalks.

  It spent the next minute gulping them back down.

  Zala aimed her pistol at the monster, but it was unlikely to do anything more than annoy it.

  “I knew I should’ve brought something bigger. If you can find a way to stop this thing without killing it, I won’t object.”

  “Zala, I find your lack of faith disturbing.”

  She smiled mirthlessly. “Just shut up and stop that beast already.”

  The Gynoecium’s roots broke through the ground. They probed blindly, snatching up any Stalk they could catch. Zala blasted a tendril, causing it to drop a few citizens. Others were not so lucky. The giant plant devoured them by the dozens.

  I grabbed Zala and rocketed into the air and out of the reach of the hungry creature. She didn’t protest.

  The monster cracked open a stone building and slurped down its inhabitants like an aardvark attacking a termite nest.

  I set Zala down a safe distance away and flew in for a closer look. It wasn’t the monster’s teeth or appetite that intrigued me. It was the dozens of pods hanging from its central body. While it gorged itself on the Stalks, I zipped close enough to tear one of the larger pods loose. The Gynoecium didn’t notice.

  I flew back to Zala and put the pod on the ground between us. It was a milky green color, and there was something wiggling inside. I used my laser to slice open the pod. A small Stalk spilled out. The creature rolled around in an effort to stand up.

  “The Great Gynoecium,” I said. “The source of all life.”

  “It’s eating its own offspring?” asked Zala. “Where’s the sense in that?”

  I scanned the cavern. Once I knew what to look for, it was obvious. The fungus was sparse, but the smoothness of the walls and edifices showed that the Stalks had scoured everything else. The Stalk population, and the Gynoecium that had birthed them, had become unsustainable.

  “It can’t stop reproducing,” I said, “so it’s forced to devour its unwanted children in hopes of balancing its ecosystem. But it’s too late for that.”

  “Can we destroy it then?” asked Zala.

  “We’re not going to kill it,” I said.

  “I’m surprised you’re so squeamish. Or are you just reluctant to kill a specimen that could be used to further your own—”

  I rocketed away before she could finish the question. I shot the monster with several blasts, but my exo’s weaponry barely irritated the Gynoecium. I fired several mini rockets. Black sap oozed out of the wounds, extinguishing any potential fires. My final effort was to blast it right in its flowering jaws. The explosion burned away its stigma and whisker-like filaments. It swallowed its mouthful of Stalks and lunged at me.

  I flew higher to draw it out of the ground as I kept shooting harmless, but irritating, lasers into its face. Its vines and roots whipped around me, but I was just fast enough. My plan worked perfectly until I hit the cavern ceiling. I had nowhere else to go and the Gynoecium had yet to expose its most vulnerable portion.

  Roots wrapped around me and prepared to throw me into the monster’s snapping maw. I tossed a bomb down its throat. It exploded, spraying sap and vegetable matter. The fearless Gynoecium howled. Its limp roots released me, and it retreated into the ground. Gone in a matter of seconds, along with every root and tendril. Only the destruction was left in its wake.

  I flew back to Zala.

  “You did it,” she said.

  “I only scared it,” I replied. “It’s not gone. It’s just hiding.”

  The cavern rumbled. The subterranean cry of the wounded thing echoed from all directions.

  “We should get out of here while we can,” said Zala.

  “Not yet. We haven’t solved the problem.”

  “Don’t tell me you believe that prophecy nonsense.”

  “No. But regardless, the Stalks and the Gynoecium are my responsibility.”

  I issued an ultrasonic command, and Snarg chirped, skittering down one of the chasms left by the Gynoecium.

  “Is this some foolish attempt to make me believe you’ve changed?” she asked. “Or just your inability to resist any scientific mystery, no matter how unimportant?”

  “We can have this conversation later. Or not,” I said. “Preferably not. All I know is that there is no such thing as an
unimportant scientific mystery. And I can’t allow a unique form of life to perish, Zala. Not here. Not on Terra.”

  “You let this world go.”

  “It’s a gray area,” I said. “At least, for the next fifty or sixty years.”

  My exo pinged in response to a sonic chirp from Snarg. She’d found her prey. I gave her another command.

  The ground quaked. The Gynoecium roared. The rocky formation beneath us threatened to crumble and fall into a deep black pit.

  The colossal serpentine plant burst into the open. Shrieking, it flailed about, smashing against the cavern walls. A massive stalactite fell from the ceiling and crushed several Stalk buildings.

  “By all the gods, Emperor,” said Zala. “If you keep this up, we’ll be buried alive.”

  The Gynoecium collapsed, writhing on the cavern floor. At last, the colorless vines and roots, the parts always below the surface, appeared. And on that vulnerable portion, several tons of pulpy, pink-and-white vegetable matter grew. Snarg coiled around the growth. She dug into it with her many claws while simultaneously gnawing. I regretted the pain, but it was the only way to get the monster to expose its vulnerable point.

  Snarg ceased her aggressive massage at my command. I flew Zala down to get a good look at the incapacitated creature. Its vines throbbed. Its petals twitched. There was still some life left in its thorny roots, though nothing too dangerous.

  The immobile Stalks drooped all around us.

  “What’s wrong with them?” asked Zala.

  “Wrong pronoun,” I said. “The Stalks aren’t a group of individuals. They’re simply extensions of a single, immense life-form. They were right. The Gynoecium is the Stalks, and the Stalks are the Gynoecium.

  “Snarg is wrapped around its central brain, for lack of a more accurate term that would only confuse you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Thanks.”

  “No problem. Basically, Snarg has overstimulated the brain, rendered the creature unconscious, for lack of a better—”

  “Just because I’m not a scientist, it doesn’t make me an idiot, Emperor.”

  “I apologize if I’m condescending.”

  “Apologizing for condescension is usually condescending in itself,” said Zala.

  “Usually,” I agreed. “But I haven’t figured a way around that.”

  She prodded an immobile Stalk. “But they talked to us.”

  “A telepathic parlor trick, I assume. The Gynoecium was responding to our own thoughts and producing alluring sounds. Perhaps it’s an old adaptation from when it needed to lure prey to it. Its own primal grasp of the situation figured in as well. So it took its own instincts and turned them into something to pique my interests. In a strange way, it really was asking for my help.”

  Zala noticed that the statue in my honor was now only a rock shaped nothing like me, and that the carvings on the stone had vanished. They’d never been there in the first place. It had all been psionic tweaks in our own perceptions.

  “Why did it pick you?” she asked.

  “Most probably, it was responding to my own force of will.”

  She glared.

  “Or perhaps it sensed that I was the leader of the expedition. Or that I had the intellectual creativity to possibly solve its problem.”

  “Or maybe you were just easier to manipulate,” she said. “Admit it. You liked the idea of being a savior.”

  The Gynoecium had tapped into something deep within me. There was a part of me that expected to be adored. I didn’t rule Terra anymore, but it would’ve been a simple thing to resume where I left off.

  Consciously, I wasn’t interested. But unconsciously, I couldn’t rule out a part of me missed it.

  I said, “Regardless of the reason, it takes a tremendous telepathic field to control such a large life-form spread out in so many discrete pieces. It must be fairly powerful to get past my own innate psionic resistance.”

  “The Stalks were right. If I’d destroyed the Gynoecium, it most probably would’ve been the end of them. My theory, and this is a very loose theory, so assume it will have to be heavily modified after a thorough investigation…”

  “I’ll be sure to mention than in my report,” she said.

  “Be sure to. Sloppy science doesn’t do anyone any good. I’m assuming that the central mass spawns the Stalks with the purpose of collecting fungus to feed the prime plant. The fungal supply became strained. The Gynoecium tried to reabsorb its biomass, but it wasn’t evolutionarily equipped with a shutoff switch, so it kept spawning Stalks. The results were unsustainable.”

  “How could you possibly have guessed all that?” asked Zala.

  “Does it genuinely surprise you that I have an extensive knowledge of botany? Uranus has evolved similar forms of massive flora. None is as mobile as this, but there’s a parallel evolution. Uranacs have to actually dig to get to the brain. It’s quite the delicacy there. But I guessed that it would be easier to get the Gynoecium to do the work itself.”

  Zala said, “You could’ve brought the whole cavern crashing down on us on a guess.”

  “It was an educated guess.”

  She laughed. Her scales brightened. “I should be angry, Emperor. But what should I expect at this point? It was a reckless and foolish plan that could’ve easily gotten us killed.”

  “You keep saying that, but we’re not dead yet.” I sliced off a chunk of the Gynoecium’s brain for a study sample and used my laser to melt the rest. The tremendous plant went still.

  “I thought you didn’t want to kill it,” said Zala.

  “I’m only destroying the active brain. It has redundant biology.” I pointed to several smaller pink masses. “It can grow a new one. But that’ll take some time, and the creature should go into a low metabolic rate that’ll ease the stress on the ecosystem until I can find a way to fix things more permanently.”

  I placed the sample in a storage compartment. “My work is done here for now. We should go to our next stop.”

  “Shouldn’t we take a look around?” asked Zala.

  “No need. I’m fairly certain we have what we came for.”

  Zala didn’t argue. Nor did she ask any questions, aside from one asked while we trekked our way to the surface.

  “Are you still clinging to your inside agent theory?”

  “I’m past questioning it right now. I’m only following the trail to see where it goes. One way or another, we’ll find our answers at the end.”

  She chuckled.

  “Do you find that amusing?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  We reached the snowy white surface.

  “You aren’t going to tell me why?” I asked.

  Grinning, Zala snapped shut her softsuit helmet, hiding her face. She trudged off toward the saucer without another word. Snarg chirped and scuttled after her.

  I smiled to myself, though I couldn’t say why, as I followed.

  17

  Other than the coordinates, there was a single image on the disc. A stylized scorpion hieroglyphic. It was just as good as a set of coordinates.

  The Everlasting Dynasty was the oldest civilization still active on Terra. Its inventors and strange alchemical science, enabled by a mysterious fountain at its heart, had made it the undisputed master of Africa and much of Asia. But empires crumbled. It was an undisputed truth. Given a long enough time line, even the most powerful nations fall. The nature of their undoing varies, but the end result was always the same. The greatest civilizations are only a few thousand years from being forgotten, as the Dynasty most probably would have been, if not for its peculiar talent to cling to existence as a small dot on a map beside Egypt.

  I briefed Zala on what to expect. The Everlasting Dynasty was an insular nation. Though it had none of its former glory, it retained an ability to defend itself. A desperate Axis had invaded in the last days of WW II. Archival newsreels of panzers being melted by solar rays and giant scorpions devouring terrifying platoons had made quite the impres
sion, and as long as the Dynasty kept to itself, the rest of Terra was content to let it alone.

  I landed my saucer outside the ancient city and instructed Zala to leave her weapons behind. She insisted on having her sword, and I relented. I had Snarg stay aboard. She didn’t tend to get along with the Dynastic scorpions.

  A contingent of bare-chested Terra Sapiens greeted us. They said nothing, leading us through the ancient city and into the throne room of their queen. We stood at the foot of a high golden staircase. Servants parted the embroidered curtains at the top, revealing their queen.

  Serket had once been Terra Sapien, although the endless millennia and Dynastic science had altered her immortal body in mysterious ways. She was at least as old as her faded kingdom, and probably a few centuries older. She still stood tall, moved with grace, but she wrapped her flesh in the finest blue silk bandages and wore a hood that covered her head. Her only visible features were her eyes, two bloodred pinpoints of light, and the portion of her mouth visible between two folds.

  A pair of giant scorpions trailed obediently behind her. The Everlasting Dynasty had mastered the art of genetic manipulation, via its peculiar alchemical sciences, while the rest of Terran civilization was huddling in caves for warmth.

  Serket clapped her hands lightly. A servant rushed over and sprayed a light mist down his queen’s throat, allowing her to speak.

  “Hello, Emperor.”

  I bowed. “Queen Serket.”

  Two more servants took her hands, leading her down the golden staircase. She didn’t seem to need them, but she had developed her quirks over the centuries.

  “So good to see you again,” she said. “It’s not every day that I receive the Warlord of Terra.”

  “Former Warlord,” I said.

  She laughed. It was light and melodious until her voice cracked. She coughed. The throat sprayer dashed over and gave her vocal cords a fresh coat.

  “To reign once is to reign forever,” she said. “I ruled the known world. The land for as far as the eye could see and all its people and beasts were mine to command.” She gazed into the distance. “But time is not always kind. Even to immortals.”