Fireflies and Cosmos: Interstellar Spring Book 1

by J. Darris Mitchell

  La'Shay's mouth worked dumbly but before she could find it in herself to form anything useful to say the entomologist spoke up. 'Captain, if I may ask her a question?' Captain Mondragon nodded. The entomologist smiled and looked at La'Shay, his brown eyes sinking into her darker ones, 'Ensign Roman Luz Jupiter, at your service, madam, and I assure you, though I lack the honors and esteem of my colleagues, I will do everything in my power to make your life here on Wholhom a better one. What may I ask, is that charming device you are wearing that ever so slightly magnifies your eyes and positively makes them sparkle?'

  La'Shay found herself talking without even thinking, 'You've never seen glasses?' She said, again removing them and cleaning them on her coat.

  The man Jupiter shook his head no.

  'Oh damn it, here we go,' Dr. Relkor said, only adding to La'Shay's confusion.

  'We don't have surgical facilities on Wholhom yet, so the glassworkers at out telescope shop polished me corrective lenses. I can't see a thing without them, well nothing small anyway.'

  'They are absolutely spectacular, and I hate to say that I hope your planet never achieves the technological prowess to take away those charming devices from your beautiful face. What they do to your cheekbones is simply astounding. It reminds me of the beauty of a skipper butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, for you see, the chrysalis only heightens the beauty of the-'

  'That will be quite enough Ensign. We have work to do,' Captain Mondragon said and Roman Jupiter snapped to attention. La'Shay found herself strangely pleased to see that Jupiter’s wide smile did not leave his face entirely.

  Chapter 14

  'So you see that's why I'd hoped for the expertise of Dr. Mercurian,' La'Shay finished lamely.

  Catalina nodded. She wished that Patrick were here as well. As it happened she had sent Roman to go wander the fields while she and Farah spoke with La'Shay for fear of the entomologist beguiling the already frazzled doctor.

  'So let me get this straight,' Farah said, pushing back her dark straight hair and taking a deep breathe, 'The peanuts weren't producing food or fixing nitrogen anywhere close to spec, some were even depleting your soil of what nitrogen had accumulated since the Institute’s Seedpod got here, what, 68 standards ago?'

  La'Shay nodded. Farah didn't slow down enough to notice.

  'You noticed there were little black beetles everywhere, so you tried to manage for them. Organics weren't working, so you tried pesticides, those worked for a year and the peanuts got better, but then the beetles came back and the peanuts did worse than ever. After that you tried the dangerously outdated strategy of expanding your peanut farmland so the beetles wouldn't have a habitat to stay in.'

  'We have beekeepers who bring in the pollinators,' La'Shay started, 'there shouldn't be any pests. None were on the Seedpods and no one had introduced them. It's just these beetles,' Farah held up a hand and La'Shay's strength left her. Catalina felt bad for her. Here she was, meeting two of her heroes in the flesh, and they were bullying her. Catalina told herself she'd go nicer on the ground worm. Farah didn't seem to find this a priority.

  'You tried the rather absurd strategy of planting only peanuts and, by some stroke of dumb luck, that worked, or did for a while anyway, and that's what got us to this,' Farah gestured to the peanut fields around them. They stretched on for kilometers, past the horizon, as far as they could see. They'd driven into the field on an Ultra-Reaper. But after what seemed an eternity of traversing row after row of peanuts, the Catalina had ordered La'Shay to stop. La'Shay had mumbled about the mountains not being much further, but the Farah had silenced her with a glare.

  'So then what happened? The beetles came back?' Farah asked.

  'No, but the peanuts are doing worse than ever,' La'Shay knelt down and pulled one of the peanut plants out from the soil. It was tiny and poorly formed and the few peanuts it had produced were shrunken.

  'Well its nodes look good,' Farah said, gently touching the red lumps attached to the roots of the plants, 'and you certainly have a healthy fungus population.'

  'Yes we've always been lucky with that. Even now, with the beetles gone and the peanuts dying, the mycelium seem strong as ever,' La'Shay said.

  'Officer Relker, I don't understand. I'm familiar with mycelium, the underground part of mushrooms that compose the real bulk of the organism, but what on Earth-1 is a node?' Captain Mondragon asked the botanist.

  'A node is the part of the peanut plant that houses the bacteria that take nitrogen from the air and fix it into the soil. Normally in a crop of legumes like peanuts, it’s the first thing I check. If the nodes are green, grey or white instead of pinkish or red, it’s a good indicator that the crop hasn't been properly inoculated, but that is not the case here. These seem healthy, and the plants are definitely interfacing with the fungus, the nodes have more mycelium attached than I've ever seen.'

  'Could it be that the nodes have a different color here that indicates health?' the Captain said.

  'No ma'am. We brought with us from Earth-4, and we monitor them extensively. They haven't even evolved into a distinct species yet,' La'Shay said.

  Catalina took a deep breath, ready to let it go, but Farah couldn't help herself. 'The proper salute for a Captain is sir, not ma’am.’

  La'Shay looked confused, 'I thought that since you were a woman-'

  'That you should treat us differently? Rank has nothing to do with gender Doctor not at the Institute, not anymore. I thought you said you followed our exploits,” Farah said.

  'I look up to you because you are women,' La'Shay stammered.

  'Our gender has nothing to do with our abilities. It's that kind of thinking that kept women off of the first space ships,' Farah said, her voice growing hot.

  'I didn't mean anything-'

  'The proper salute is sir. Do you understand Doctor?' Catalina said, keeping her voice emotionless.

  'Yes…sir. I just thought-'

  'Would you prefer us to call you Miss Winston instead of Doctor?' Farah quipped.

  'No! Of course not. I apologize, I didn't know!'

  'Now you do. What about the fungi, are they providing nutrients?' Catalina said, hoping to redirect the conversation.

  'Yes… sir,' La'Shay started lamely, 'we did an extensive survey a few standards ago, before all this got bad. They transport nitrogen, sugar, and a mix of necessary minerals and nutrients to and from the plant. They're doing well with the peanuts. Better than they did when this area was still wildflowers and grasses, actually.'

  'Curious,' Farah said.

  Catalina didn't press her, she knew Farah well enough to know that if she had more to her hypothesis, she would say so.

  ‘I only have one more question for you Doctor. What could have possibly compelled you to plant so many peanuts?’ Catalina asked.

  La’Shay tried to smile but ended up only removing her glasses and polishing them for a moment before she spoke. ‘I struck a deal with Bulletar, if we could provide them peanuts they’d get us credits and trade ships.’

  ‘Who did you strike a deal with on Bulletar?’

  La’Shay put her glasses back on but did not meet the captain’s gaze. ‘A man from the Corps. He provided us with a few ultra-reapers in exchange for a parcel of land to build a burbdome, but he assured us that if we could pay we wouldn’t have to give him the space!’

  ‘And how’s that working out for you?’ Farah said and rolled her eyes.

  Dr. Winston said nothing.

  They got back on the Ultra-Reaper. La'Shay sat in the front seat, Catalina and Farah settled into the back. The machine warmed up its grav generator and lifted them off the ground. La'Shay piloted them back towards what counted for civilization on Wholhom in silence. La’Shay had told them there were a few other small settlements, but most of the population of Wholhom lived in Hearth, which was situated between the peanut fields to the east and briny sea to the west. A lazy river cut the town in half. The colonists used the water to irrigate hobby farms. Catali
na saw corn, beans, vegetables- even a few medium sized trees beginning to bear fruit. The town didn’t seem to have much in the way of commerce. Aside from the telescope shop Dr. Winston had mentioned, there didn’t seem to be much besides a doctor’s office a few machine shops, dentists, a comm station for communicating with other settlements. The planet had the sleepy feel of a small town that hadn’t discovered trade. People either tended their gardens, which filled every inch of Hearth, or milled around the town square. No one had shopping bags, or walked in the hurried gait of someone who had anything to do. Indeed, it seemed the beehives that hummed here and there were far more bustling than the people who lived in the largest city of this planet.

  Catalina wished she had something to say about the simple way of life they had, about the beauty of self-reliance, about how there hadn’t been a need to rush because commerce would find Wholhom sooner or later, but the doctor had mentioned the death of Dr. Mercurian too many times, and it was eating away at her. Why was Dr. Winston so surprised about it? Patrick had been dead for months, more than enough time for the information to percolate through the inhabited sector, and even if it hadn't, La'Shay was clearly a hero-worshipper. She knew the entire crew of the Artemis by name. For her not to have found out about the death of the Patrick was strange indeed. Try as she might, Catalina couldn't come up with an explanation that didn't sound paranoid. Was the institute trying to hide what had happened on Epsilon-V from the corporations? Did the corporations get wind of it and smother the story so they could still build Burbdomes? Was there another ship working there already? Catalina had only questions, no answers. Instead of trying to solve these mysteries she was stuck here until she could solve Wholhom's peanut debacle.

  While they drove Catalina took out her tablet and perused a few news sites. She could find no articles of Patrick's death. Not a snippet, nor a mention, not even an obituary. There was also disturbingly little on Epsilon-V. Normally, each new survey was written up and published through the comms. Surveys were real crowd pleasers. People loved to learn about whatever flowers and butterflies had taken up residence on a new planet, or if some other planet had an infestation of a parasite or bacteria that another planet didn't have and, therefore, made their own existence seem that much more palatable, but there was next to no information on Epsilon-V. Just mention that the Artemis had begun a survey there and found unusual organisms, and more information would be forthcoming when available. No mention of the creatures, no mention of atmosphere levels, bizarre as they had been, and worst of all no mention of the late doctor. It didn't add up.

  Catalina tried to shake the thoughts of conspiracy from her mind. She had to trust that the Institute was throwing their absolute best at Epsilon-V. Perhaps she was only distressed because she had thought she was there best. She shook her head and tried to focus. Glamorous or not, she had peanuts to farm and a planet to save.

  Chapter 15

  The knocking on her door grew more urgent and Catalina got out of bed. She never slept well planet-side. She felt trapped like an insect with its wings plucked off. She knew her fears were unfounded, but sometimes couldn't help but worry that something would happen to the Arrow that she came down on, that she'd never get free the planet's gravity well, and they'd be stuck there with the scant hundreds of organisms on Wholhom instead of the tens of thousands in their living library aboard the Artemis. She knew that Fin could send another of the 17 Arrows, or if they all failed the Institute could send another ship, or that Dr. Winston could shuttle them up to the Artemis on some derelict rocket, but if any of that happened then Institute might decommission the Artemis. Catalina’s year on the Artemis had been a good one, and she knew the ship had plenty to do with it. She couldn't wait to lean the Arrow back and launch it into space and link back up with the rest of the vessel. Hopefully, whoever was knocking at her door was going to help her do exactly that.

  Once awake, Catalina moved quickly. She dressed in her green Institute's uniform, donning the black gloves, boots and belt and paying careful attention to her badges of honor on her left breast. Each represented a victory over the emptiness that had awaited humanity before the Institute had launched its Seedpods in the Great Seeding. Each was a reminder that humanity alone was capable of bringing order to that cold, dark chaos of the universe. Catalina shuddered to think what even humble Wholhom had been before humanity seeded it with bacteria, flora and fauna. Nothing. It had been nothing. There had been nothing here but a small briny ocean and a bunch of rock. Mankind had found no life in the universe except for the life on Earth. There were no extraterrestrial bugs or plants or even bacteria. Mankind had looked into the void of space, the infinity of the cosmos, and found nothing. Each badge upon her breast was triumph over that nothingness. Each badge upon her breast a promise fulfilled to humanity. Catalina wouldn't even exist, she'd have been born into the nothingness if not for the technological prowess mankind had used to vanquish the void of space and the unforgiving size and cold of the universe. Catalina straightened her badges because she knew with the exception of mankind and the life it carried with it, the rest of the universe only wished to unravel what sense of order there was to the worlds. That was why Catalina worked so hard to make life thrive on the Seeded Worlds. The alternative was nothing.

  Someone knocked on the door again. Catalina carefully slicked back her dark, curly hair and tamed it in a tight bun. She opened the door. Farah Relkor stood there, wearing the same dirty green uniform she'd worn into the field hours earlier. Her hair was a mess, her badges nowhere to be seen, and yet, the grass stains (or in this case, peanut plant stains) on her uniform and the grime on her gloves also bespoke of mankind's triumph over the cold lifelessness of the universe. At least Catalina hoped Farah was here to tell her something along those lines.

  'Captain, I've made a breakthrough.'

  'Go ahead,' Catalina said, stifling a yawn. Despite her immaculate appearance, she was not an easy riser.

  'The fungus! I’ve never seen anything like it before! Well I’ve heard of things like it from the ancient tropical rainforests of Earth-1, but the Institute didn't launch anything like that on the Seedpods. Didn't see the value! But it evolved nonetheless! It's like I've always said, fungus is more an animal than a plant but this stuff, this stuff is a predator!'

  'Slow down, Farah. You're skipping steps I think.'

  Farah rolled her eyes. 'It'll be easier to just show you.'

  Catalina nodded.

  'In my lab. Come on.'

  Right. Catalina thought and fell into step behind the overexcited botanist.

  Farah's lab was a hodgepodge of various experiments. Plants of every shade of green as well as a few shades of blues, yellows and even purples overflowed out of various growing mediums. There were hydroponic tubes running across the walls, beds of gravel, even cubes of transparent gel in which delicate plant roots grew. Huge walk-in terrariums boasted mixes of plants and the fruiting bodies of mushrooms, the only part of the fungus structure that could be seen. It was one of these fruiting structures that Farah directed Catalina towards. It was a slender thing, thinner than a pencil, with a shriveled top.

  'Behold,' Farah said.

  Catalina scratched her head, 'What am I looking at?'

  'The fruiting body of this fungus appears normal enough, does it not?'

  'Drop the showmanship and just report First Officer. I'm not on Wholhom's day yet.'

  If Catalina's impatience affected Farah, she did not let it show.

  'Now watch as I bring this peanut plant, grown in our library, close to the mushroom.'

  Catalina watched as Farah did just that, and watched as nothing at all happened.

  'Nothing at all happened.'

  'Correct Captain, thank you, but now, watch as I bring this specimen found here on Wholhom closer to the mushroom.'

  Catalina watched as Farah brought a peanut plant on a rolling table ever closer to the slender mushroom. When it came within 30 centimeters of the mushroom, the cap popped
out a little smoke. Spores, Catalina knew, but why, she had no idea.

  'It can sense the peanut plant?'

  'That was what I thought at first as well, but no. It didn't notice a specimen of the same species grown in our lab. What's going on is far more complex. Behold.'

  On Farah's obviously prearranged signal, the lights dimmed and a hologram came up in the middle of the room. A green fibrous stalk, presumably of the peanut plant seemed to grow from the floor to the ceiling and slowly rotated.

  'What's that? ' Catalina's eyes locked on what looked like a barb or spike that jutted from the plant. It almost reminded her of a butterfly's mouth it was so delicate, but there was not butterfly on its hollow end, just an empty canal that presumably ended in a point inside of the peanut plant. 'Is that the spore? I've never seen one look quite like that.'

  'Excellent question Captain. I wondered the same thing. Now what follows is not direct footage of course, rather a recreation of what I have observed already happening on the plant, coupled with the fungi's ability to detect the presence I think it is reasonable to conclude that-'

  'Just play the clip Farah.'

  'Yessir.'

  A mushroom bloomed into digital existence a few meters away. A grid showed that it represented the same distance between the peanut and actual mushroom on the table. It came slightly closer, and when it did, the spores exploded into the room, filling the lab with globular balls floating around, looking for a place to land.

  'They have very sensitive receptors,' Farah said.

  Indeed, most of the spores, not seeming to find their intended, bounced around, settled to the ground or were blown away, but one floated just right and bumped into the strange protrusion sticking from the peanut plant. As soon as it touched the protuberance, it latched on, and began to expand slowly down the hollowed out middle of the spike. It did this methodically until it seemed to strike a vein within the peanut plant, and its growth exploded. Once it found its energy source fine white hairs filled the peanut plant. They slowly wormed their way through the inside of the plant, down the stems, through the roots and into the nodes where the nitrogen was stored. Once there, the fungus stopped spreading. It reached some sort of equilibrium, taking enough nitrogen and sugar to survive, but not so much as to kill the peanuts. After a moment it extended more of its thread-like mycelium through the ground and up popped another mushroom, and the cycle repeated. The fungus was a parasite, living inside the peanut, gaining enough energy to reproduce.